Sensitive question here...colleague X and I are both from the same department. Due to the manpower cut, everyone's timetable this year has been quite filled. This sort of means that there's neither shortage nor excess, given that no one resigns or goes on long leave.

But apparently colleague X has been told that the dept is in excess and hence, this colleague is told by management to apply for transfer or cross-level deployment.

On the other hand, when I tried to apply for OPE, I was privately told by school management not to transfer and they will "try and groom me". And I was told all sorts of disadvantages for transferring school. However, I can already see that most KP positions are saturated and hardly anyone is leaving, so it's kind of pointless to still fight for progression in this environment.

Individually all these happened behind closed doors and my colleague and I only knew about each other's situation through casual conversations.

The reality is that although both my colleague and I are not KPs, I hold a much larger portfolio and have a much heavier workload. So I am suspecting some "smoking" by the management here.

Is it true that transfers/deployments can be "forced" or "coerced"? Is transferring also the only way for me to progress to the leadership track?