The Peter Principle is often told as a joke. It isn’t.
It is a symptom of an organization that has no job architecture — only a ladder, and a hierarchy, and a desperate belief that competence compounds upward.
It doesn’t.
A specialist and a manager are not the same job. They require different capabilities, different temperaments, different daily work. Treating one as the promotion of the other is not a reward. It is a punishment for both the person and the team.
The right fix is not mentorship. It is architecture.
Design two tracks. Compensate both. Promote into both. Stop conflating.
The specialist doesn’t want your job. They want their own.