[pfannkuchen]

Leveling establishes a social hierarchy. The ape brains of the people on the team don’t care about the ladder. If you mess up the social hierarchy people will be unhappy.

If there is peer input into the grading system, the ape brain social hierarchy judgements are being leaked into the leveling system (in a good way). If someone feels bad about the reviewee being at the new hierarchy spot they aren’t going to support the promo, regardless of what the candidate did. Of course the candidate doing things influences the ape brain judgement so it’s not as if these things are completely disconnected, it’s just not how it looks on the surface.