6 ideas
In a hierarchy, people are promoted because they do their current job well. Promotion stops only when they reach a job they cannot do, so over time every post tends to be filled by someone incompetent to do it. The useful work gets done by people who have not yet been promoted that far.
A skilled, conscientious repairman is promoted to shop foreman because of his mechanical excellence. As foreman he keeps grabbing the tools and fixing machines himself instead of scheduling and supervising. Work piles up, and the organization loses a great mechanic and gains a failing manager. The skills that earned the promotion were not the skills the new job required.
A hierarchy hides its failures instead of firing them. Percussive sublimation is 'kicking upstairs': moving an incompetent person into a higher-sounding post that has less real function. The lateral arabesque gives them a longer title and a remote office at the same level. Both moves keep up the appearance that the hierarchy promotes on merit while taking the failure out of the workflow.
A hierarchy judges competence by conformity to its internal rules and by keeping the existing order stable, not by output. So an employee who is dramatically more productive than their superiors disrupts the structure. That person is often dismissed or driven out, just like the grossly incompetent.
To stay in a job you do well and enjoy, show some small, harmless incompetence that is unrelated to your core work. Examples are a messy desk, mild eccentricity, or skipping a minor formality. The hierarchy then stops considering you for promotion. You avoid being lifted into a role you would fail at and remain competent and satisfied where you are.
Advancement comes more reliably from Pull, meaning a patron higher up who draws you upward, than from Push, meaning your own effort, training and self-improvement. A well-placed sponsor can lift you past that blockage.