“Nothing demoralizes a team faster than watching incompetence get rewarded.” — Liz Wiseman
Failing Up: How to Spot It, What to Do About It, and What You’ll Have to Accept
“In the corporate world, people are not always promoted because they’re the best at what they do; sometimes, they’re promoted because they’re no longer effective where they are.” — Anonymous Silicon Valley Exec
Act I: The Phenomenon of Failing Up
It starts innocently enough. A mid-level manager who’s been “in the trenches” for years is suddenly promoted to Director. Their department is underperforming, their peers often shoulder their load, and their team quietly dreads their one-on-ones. But up the ladder they go.
This is the phenomenon known as failing up—the act of being rewarded with promotions, visibility, or more responsibility despite (or because of) underperformance. It’s as old as bureaucracy itself and deeply woven into the fabric of many organizations—public and private, small and large.
Failing up is not just about bad performance being rewarded. It’s about systems and incentives—about organizations that don’t know how to measure true impact, how to confront misalignment, or how to manage political dynamics cleanly.
The term gained popular traction in Hollywood, politics, and tech over the last two decades, as critics observed individuals who stumbled upward, seemingly unscathed. But it has roots going back much further—some say even the Peter Principle (coined in 1969 by Dr. Laurence J. Peter) captured the essence of failing up: “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence.”
Act II: The Modern Context
In tech and corporate leadership today, failing up takes many forms:
- The Glider: A person who manages to attach themselves to every successful project, without delivering much themselves, then rides the perception of success upward.
- The Diplomat: Excellent at managing up, poor at managing across or down. They dazzle execs, but their team quietly crumbles.
- The Survivor: A veteran who remains after successive reorganizations, promoted not out of merit but out of convenience, politics, or perceived stability.
One common factor: a lack of clear accountability frameworks and poor feedback cultures. If organizations can’t articulate what “good” looks like, or if they’re allergic to confrontation, they create fertile ground for failing up.
Thought leaders like Kim Scott (author of Radical Candor) and Patrick Lencioni (The Five Dysfunctions of a Team) offer frameworks that counter this trend. Scott urges leaders to challenge directly and care personally, while Lencioni emphasizes accountability and trust. When these values are missing, failing up becomes not an anomaly—but the norm.
Act III: What It Looks Like Done Well (and Poorly)
Done Well (or at Least Better):
- At Netflix, famed for its high-performance culture, “adequate performance gets a generous severance package.” This doesn’t entirely eliminate failing up, but it reduces its prevalence by demanding clarity in outcomes and ongoing feedback.
- Bridgewater Associates, under Ray Dalio, implemented a radical transparency culture—complete with recorded meetings and feedback-driven tools. Again, it’s not perfect, but it creates fewer shadows for failing up to hide in.
Done Poorly:
- In large enterprises where “reorg” is a seasonal activity, managers are often shuffled or promoted without performance context—only to fail again in a different function. By the time problems are visible, they’ve moved on.
- In startups, early employees are often grandfathered into leadership roles based on tenure, not aptitude. This results in “accidental managers” who climb by virtue of proximity to founders, rather than actual leadership skill.
In both cases, failing up creates resentment, corrodes trust, and damages the morale of high performers who see competence go unrewarded.
Act IV: What to Do About It
If You’re a Leader or Executive:
- Define Success Clearly. Ambiguity is the fuel of failing up. Write down what success looks like for every role—and review it regularly.
- Embrace Feedback Loops. Create a culture where 360-degree feedback is expected and rewarded.
- De-couple Promotion from Politics. Use peer reviews, objective data, and tangible outcomes—not charisma or optics—as the basis for advancement.
- Act Early. If someone is failing up, address it before they become untouchable. Moving them up to “manage them out of the way” only multiplies the damage.
If You’re a Peer or Observer:
- Focus on influence, not envy. Recognize the system—not the person—as the root problem.
- Document your own work clearly and consistently. Make your impact visible, even if others are playing politics.
- If possible, find allies. A strong peer network can create pressure for merit-based recognition.
- Know when to let go. If your organization rewards mediocrity and ignores excellence, the healthiest thing may be to exit.
Act V: What You’ll Have to Accept
Sometimes, the person failing up won’t get caught. Sometimes, they will become your boss. Sometimes, you’ll do the heavy lifting and they’ll take the credit. And yes, sometimes they’ll be promoted again.
It’s maddening. It’s unfair. And it’s also part of the human condition—especially in systems where optics trump outcomes.
You’ll have to accept:
- You cannot fix every culture.
- Merit isn’t always rewarded.
- You must protect your own clarity and growth.
What you don’t have to accept is silence. You can speak up. You can lead by example. You can create small pockets of excellence that push back against the tide.
And if you’re lucky—or strategic—you’ll find or build the kind of culture where failing up isn’t how people get ahead.
Wrapping up…
Failing up is a systemic failure disguised as individual success. If we want to build better companies, it’s not enough to promote people who look the part. We must promote people who do the work—who build others up, own the outcomes, and have the scars to prove it.Or, as the old joke goes: “The cream rises to the top, but so does the scum.” It’s on us to tell the difference.
