Why is it that the boss never seems to know what they’re doing? The famous “Dilbert principle” asserts that companies promote incompetent employees into middle management to get them out of the way. But Professor David Dunning, co-creator of the competing “Dunning–Kruger effect”, says there’s more to it than that, specifically that the more incompetent a person is, the more confident they can be. Meanwhile, Kelly Shue, Professor of Finance at Yale, says an even simpler idea, the “Peter Principle” helps to explain why people get promoted beyond their level of competence. And entrepreneur Heather McGregor explains why the incompetence of a former boss led her to buy her own company

Presented by Ed Butler, This is a repeat of a programme first broadcast in June 2020.

(Picture: A woman at her desk. Getty Images)