The Development of Managerial Ability: A Mathematical Analysis

The now famous “Peter Principle” asserts that every manager has a unique executive ability potential and that this ability ceiling or upper limit leads to an inevitable growth in the gap between an organization's demands and the ability of any executive to meet them. In fact, this assertion is shown to be misleading after a formal analysis of two deceptively simple questions. First, how does executive ability develop over time as a manager ascends the leadership ladder; and second, how does this ability compare with an organization's demand for ability at any given time? The result of this analysis is a demonstration that executive ability does increase with the growth in organizational demands, but the increase is cyclical rather than uniform. Additional results are noted concerning the value of executive development programs and the relationship of personal or self problems to organizational problems.