P&G operates its organization like a real-time leadership factory, so that every manager at top levels is constantly grooming three or more replacements.

The soldiers are not being protected by keeping peer input out of the promotion process. Far from it. Soldiers and junior officers are the ones advocating for a broader evaluation process because they feel the brunt of toxic leaders. No, it seems clear that the incumbent senior officers running the top-down evaluation, promotion, and assignment sys

a highly regulated bureaucracy routinely leads to a surprising behavior: nepotism.

Evaluations in the military, unfortunately, have become formal exercises in documenting excellence across the board.

One has to wonder if the modern navy would have ever promoted Alfred Thayer Mahan to admiral or given him command of a war college. The military today fosters an aversion to risk, not culturally, but structurally. A blemish on an officer’s official record has severely negative consequences. Is it possible to imagine a young officer being promoted t

stay in operational assignments and remain competitive for command, or pursue broadening experiences at their own professional peril.”19

The army had encouraged and paid for their PhDs in those fields, but then was unsure how to employ the officers.

If leadership depends purely on seniority you are defeated before you start. You give a good leader very little and he will succeed; you give mediocrity a great deal and they will fail. —George C. Marshall, 1941, to the Truman Committee

truly merit-based system would ignore seniority altogether (which is commonly confused with experience).