[fishtoaster]

I've seen B cause issues too.

The duties of level N and N+1 are often a little different. If they're different enough, then it can be difficult to demonstrate N+1 while also doing N work. You're option is to work two jobs at once or, as I more commonly see, do the bare minimum of N work and focusing on N+1 work. This can look like the teammate who's focusing on division-wide initiatives at the expense of implementing the things their team is actually assigned - leaving their teammates to pick up the slack.

This is certainly not inevitable, and I'm definitely not saying B is a bad way to do things - just that this is a failure case I've seen of that model. The other, of course, is "why spend a year doing N+1 work here at an N salary when it's easier to just get hired as an N+1 at a new company today?"

[jacobr1]

One successful way I've seen this down is to proactively give people ownership of sub-projects with collaboration, or leadership scope N+1. It is explicitly acknowledged (so no shadow work that your team is covering to support) and acts as a way to gauge maturity, while limiting risk.

[8n4vidtmkvmk]

Yep...we had a whole slew of people acting like N+1s on my team a couple years ago. Everyone trying to "lead" everyone else. Load of horseshit. Just get the work done. Meanwhile I feel like I'm penalized for not attempting to micromanage everyone else. My scores are great for N but I guess I'll never get N+1.