The Silent Killer in Your Org Chart: How to Disrupt Incompetence and Break the Silo Cycle

The most dangerous form of incompetence in an organization is the one no one dares to measure.

Hidden behind polished titles, long tenures, and org charts filled with dotted lines, lies a silent but deadly structural problem: incompetence that rises with hierarchy. Fueled by outdated promotion logic and preserved by silos, it gradually erodes innovation, responsiveness, and trust.

This is the Peter Principle, reborn in the age of data — and it's time we addressed it not just as a theory, but as an actionable organizational flaw that can and must be quantified, visualized, and disrupted.

The Peter Principle 2.0: How Incompetence Feeds Silos

The original Peter Principle, introduced in 1969 by Laurence J. Peter, stated that people are promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. But today, this phenomenon is less visible — and more dangerous.

Why?

Because modern organizations have become adept at masking stagnation with complexity. Leaders protect themselves with teams, tools, and territories. Silos become not just communication barriers, but protection mechanisms for those struggling to lead in volatile, uncertain environments.

A HBR study (“Why Do We Keep Promoting Incompetent Men?” – Chamorro-Premuzic & Gallop, 2019) found that many promotions reward confidence over competence, reinforcing hierarchical fragility. As a result, organizations are full of individuals with positional power but limited decision quality.

The 3C Framework for Incompetence Disruption™

To help organizations expose and correct this imbalance, we have researched about methods and structures providing organizations a valide frame of reference. Based on this research work, I introduce the 3C Model — a new lens for measuring leadership integrity and resilience:

Clarity

The capacity to make well-informed, timely, and strategically aligned decisions.

Competence

The cognitive and emotional alignment between a person’s role and their actual capability.

Courage

The ability to express vulnerability, invite feedback, and foster psychological safety.

Fig. 1: The 3C Framework for Incompetence Disruption™ (Source: own illustration)

If any of these three pillars collapses, silos grow. Teams disconnect. Innovation dies.

New KPIs That Make the Invisible Visible

Traditional KPIs—such as revenue growth, margin performance, or engagement scores—offer critical insight into what an organization achieves. But they often fail to illuminate how those results come about, and more importantly, what remains hidden beneath the surface: stagnation, misalignment, silo behavior, and unspoken underperformance, particularly at the leadership level.

To address these blind spots, we must evolve our measurement systems to capture the cognitive, behavioral, and relational dynamics that define true leadership effectiveness. This is precisely where the 3C Framework—Clarity, Competence, and Courage—comes into play.

By operationalizing this framework, I have developed a suite of Incompetence Disruption KPIs (ID-KPIs) that make the invisible visible. These metrics move beyond lagging indicators and introduce a set of predictive, behavior-based signals that expose how leadership either fosters or frustrates transformation, collaboration, and organizational resilience.

1. LDQ – Leadership Decision Quality

What it measures:
LDQ evaluates the clarity, timeliness, and outcome-alignment of executive decisions. It incorporates three key dimensions:

• Outcome alignment: Did the decision generate the intended result?
• Reversal rate: How often are decisions walked back, reworked, or contradicted?
• Execution time: How quickly are decisions turned into action?

Why it matters:
Decisions are the raw material of leadership. Yet, many organizations reward activity over impact. LDQ reveals the true signal-to-noise ratio in a leader’s decision-making pattern and encourages a culture of thoughtful, accountable leadership.

Inspired by: “The Hidden Traps in Decision Making” (HBR, Hammond et al., 1998)

2. AAF – Adaptive Awareness Factor

What it measures:
AAF quantifies a leader’s capacity for self-reflection and adaptive behavior. It draws on qualitative and quantitative data to assess:

• Frequency and depth of feedback-seeking behavior
• Responsiveness to 360° input
• Demonstrated course corrections based on reflection or input

Why it matters:
Adaptive awareness is the antidote to blind promotion. Incompetence often sets in when leaders stop listening. AAF encourages humility and positions feedback not as threat, but as strategic intelligence.

Inspired by: “Why Feedback Rarely Does What It’s Meant To” (HBR, Buckingham & Goodall, 2019)

3. SRR – Silo Retention Ratio

What it measures:
SRR captures the frequency and intensity with which leaders or departments restrict collaboration, information flow, or joint accountability. This includes:

• Withholding data from other teams
• Blocking or delaying cross-functional projects
• Prioritizing internal KPIs over shared outcomes

Why it matters:
Silos are not neutral structures—they are often intentional defense mechanisms. SRR quantifies the extent to which leaders actively reinforce barriers rather than dismantle them. It is a powerful cultural indicator of organizational trust and maturity.

4. VIX – Vulnerability Index for Executives

What it measures:
VIX assesses the behavioral markers of courageous leadership. It tracks:

• Willingness to admit mistakes
• Openness to saying “I don’t know”
• Frequency of inviting dissenting perspectives
• Evidence of creating psychologically safe environments

Why it matters:
As Amy Edmondson’s research has shown, psychological safety is a leading predictor of innovation and team learning. VIX gives teeth to this insight by turning it into a measurable executive attribute.

Inspired by: “Creating a Culture of Psychological Safety” (HBR, Edmondson, 2019)

5. CRQ – Cognitive Role Quotient

What it measures:
CRQ identifies the degree of cognitive alignment between a leader’s mental capacity and the complexity of their role. It triangulates data from:

• Role design and decision density
• Peer and upward feedback on problem-solving capability
• Task-switching load and pattern recognition ability

Why it matters:
The Peter Principle is no longer anecdotal—it is measurable. CRQ pinpoints where individuals have been placed in roles that exceed their adaptive bandwidth and provides evidence for succession planning, coaching, or re-alignment.

Inspired by: “How to Assess—and Improve—Your Company's Decision-Making” (HBR, Kahneman, Lovallo & Sibony, 2020)

Why These KPIs Matter Now

In a time of uncertainty, complexity, and increasing pressure for cross-functional alignment, the cost of latent incompetence at the top is no longer tolerable. These new KPIs allow organizations to go beyond what people do and assess how they lead—a distinction that makes all the difference between inertia and innovation.

They are not tools of judgment. They are instruments of growth. They invite leaders to evolve not by fear of exposure, but by the courage to develop in the light of real data.

These are the KPIs that future-ready organizations will use to build cultures of clarity, competence, and courage—and to finally break the cycle of inherited silos and unchallenged underperformance.

Mini Cases: Incompetence Disrupted in Action

Case A – From Confidence to Clarity:
A leading European insurer applied LDQ and found one executive with high output but a 76% decision-reversal rate. Coaching and delegation restructured their role—and restored team trust.

Case B – The Silo Unlocked:
A U.S. tech scale-up discovered via SRR that its Head of Product had a "sharing gap" twice the average. With coaching and AAF development, the team moved from siloed sprints to joint releases—cutting cycle time by 32%.

Implementation Playbook: Measuring Courageously

To integrate these insights without triggering resistance, organizations can follow this 90-Day Playbook:

Fig. 2: 12 Weeks Roadmap (Source: own illustration)

Conclusion: Leadership That Can’t Be Measured Can’t Be Improved

Let’s be clear: this is not about “outing” incompetence. It’s about disarming the systems that protect it—and replacing them with mechanisms that nurture reflection, adaptability, and growth.

Organizations that fail to confront the Peter Principle will remain trapped in cycles of status maintenance and stalled transformation. But those that embrace the measurement of clarity, competence, and courage will lead the next generation of agile, human-centered enterprises.

Because in the end, the true KPI of a leader is not what they control— but what they empower in others.

References

Buckingham, M., & Goodall, A. (2019). The feedback fallacy. Harvard Business Review, 97(2), 92–101.

Chamorro-Premuzic, T., & Gallop, C. (2019). Why do we keep promoting incompetent men? Harvard Business Review, 97(4), 80–87.

Edmondson, A. C. (2019). Creating a culture of psychological safety. Harvard Business Review.

Frey, C. B., & Osborne, M. A. (2017). The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation? Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 114, 254–280. 

Goleman, D. (2004). What makes a leader? Harvard Business Review, 82(1), 82–91. (Original work published 1998)

Hammond, J. S., Keeney, R. L., & Raiffa, H. (1998). The hidden traps in decision making. Harvard Business Review, 76(5), 47–58.

Kahneman, D., Lovallo, D., & Sibony, O. (2020). How to improve your company’s decision-making. Harvard Business Review, 98(3), 62–71.

Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership (4th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.