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Why the Smartest Employee Often Never Becomes the Boss

One of the biggest career myths many people believe is that the most technically skilled person in an organization will eventually become the CEO.

Reality tells a different story.

Look around most successful companies and institutions. The CEO is often not the best engineer. The CFO is rarely the best accountant. The CIO is not always the strongest programmer. Even department heads are not necessarily the most technically gifted people on their teams.

This does not mean technical competence is unimportant.

In fact, competence is what gets your foot in the door. Nobody should expect career growth while being poor at the job they were hired to do.

The problem is that many professionals spend years improving their technical abilities while completely neglecting the skills that determine who gets promoted, who gets heard, and who gets trusted with leadership responsibilities.

At the beginning of your career, people pay you for what you can do.

As you move higher, people begin to pay you for something else.

Can you communicate complex ideas in a way others understand?

Can you unite people behind a common goal?

Can you influence decisions without relying on your job title?

Can you manage difficult personalities and conflicts?

Can you present ideas confidently before executives, investors, clients, or stakeholders?

Can people trust you to represent the organization when it matters most?

Many brilliant professionals struggle with these questions. They assume hard work speaks for itself. Unfortunately, workplaces do not always reward the person who works hardest in silence.

Your Visibility matters, communication matters, relationships matter, influence matters ans strategic thinking matters too. This explains why two people with similar qualifications, experience, and intelligence can end up with completely different careers. One remains a respected specialist for decades. The other becomes a manager, director, executive, or CEO.

The difference is often not talent.

The difference is the ability to combine expertise with leadership. Technical skills build credibility, communication creates opportunities and eadership creates impact.

The professionals who rise the furthest are usually not those who choose one over the other. They are the ones who master both.

What do you think is more important for career growth: technical competence or communication and leadership skills?

Most smart and technical people just want to build and have "ownership" of the product, not the politics often involved in climbing corporate hierarchy.

Leadership is not always the zenith of career growth.

And above all, the biggest myth is to assume that one can't be both technically competent and also skillful in leadership and management skill.

Stephen0mozzy:
Most smart and technical people just want to build and have "ownership" of the product, not the politics often involved in climbing corporate hierarchy.

Leadership is not always the zenith of career growth.

And above all, the biggest myth is to assume that one can't be both technically competent and also skillful in leadership and management skill.

You hit the nail on the head.

Same reason smartest student don't always succeed

because their smartness does not translate to funds, those with funds are risks takers, goal getters and business orientated

Na because say this world of lies go crucify a honest man on the cross of Calvary

The smartest person is always the boss.
How did you come to this conclusion.

Story. The people who become CEO are those who are good at office politics.

All this communication whatever na nonsense.

It's all about the politics.

Dpsychologist:
What do you think is more important for career growth: technical competence or communication and leadership skills?

hunger go just dey make una write rubbish

I actually bliv it by connection and grace. Technicality and professionalism are what matters the most, the rest is just English. Even if u possess everything without the connection, they’ll still always bring someone from another branch to be ahead of you ni and the person will depend solely on your own skill. Just reality

They always try to outshine the masters.
It's against the laws of power.

olyrayy:
Story. The people who become CEO are those who are good at office politics.

All this communication whatever na nonsense.

It's all about the politics.

I swear, that's it...what gets an employee ahead is how well he can play office politics.

You are emphasizing on another form of intelligence….It called practical intelligence.

“Knowing what to say, how to say it to achieve effective maximum and when to say it”

It the form of intelligence one needs to survive in life, relationship and not just work.

Only people who haven't gotten to the top feel the people there are not smart.

It's like a poor person believing a billionaire is not smart because the billionaire's behavior doesn't align or show that he possesses what broke people call smart.

Continue ooo. The poor like motivational talks anyway.

Reference:
The smartest person is always the boss.
How did you come to this conclusion.

Thank you because the word smart was abused here .

You can't be boss if you're not smart

free2ryhme:
hunger go just dey make una write rubbish

Nairaland never cease to amaze me.

The CEO seat isn't handed to just anyone, it's earned. Many high performers get caught up chasing results and forget that climbing to the top requires as much patience as it does hustle. The truth is, becoming a CEO isn't out of reach. It just takes the right mix of smart thinking and the discipline to play the long game.

TWENTY MORE CHARACTERS NEEDED

100% i totally agree with you


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSqpuq8zOvI&t=34s

Smart people should have little or no business building other people's businesses. In a country where leverages abound they would not be caught up in corporate mess and should have been building for operation oriented mindsets. It is a perpetual anomaly in poorly governed societies. Nice thread

when you are so good at what you do that no one can replace you, then you will never leave that position. Those who rise are often those who have learnt to balance competence with the opportunity to sell themselves, including learning how to play office politics as well.

Why become a boss only to be tied down by the company. Dont let them use higher position to tie you down

wow
impressive
like saying talent is not enough

Most of them don't good enough for management position.

Dpsychologist:
What do you think is more important for career growth: technical competence or communication and leadership skills?

What you said is popular in nigeria where mediocrity is worshiped both in politics and all sectors. Nigeria is suffering from round peg in square hole syndrome in all its sectors and that is why terrorists are having a field
day in a country with one of the worst economic indices.
How do you think china got to the level where they are?
Go to the chinese govt officials list and you will see technical experts in different sectors. The effect waters down to the china you see today.
In nigeria an accountant is made a minister of power because he got a first class and because he is a loyalist and guess what, during his tenure he was named the minister of darkness.

Leadership with communication skill and no technical competence will always cause rifts in the organization or govt cos the leader will always feel INSECURE in advancing the ideas of his or her juniors who are technically competent.
That type of show destroys organisations and countries in the long run.
Nigeria is a case study.

Of late a senator accused his collegue of puting his daughter in nnpc not because his daughter is competent for the job but because she is the daughter of a senator.

That is how it begins.

Elon musk is a boss and the richest human alive not by speaking too much grammer but cos of his skill or competence and also getting support from a system or govt that promotes competence .
Elon is just one of the examples.

They are smart


But not good at office politics...
To get the right appraisal ..u need to be loyal to one boss to get some position

Eraddray:
They are smart


But not good at office politics...

In nigeria mediocrity and bring him down syndrome is = office politics

Operations staff and marketers in bank

Eraddray:
They are smart


But not good at office politics...
To get the right appraisal ..u need to be loyal to one boss to get some position

What you call loyalty in nigeria is SLAVERY.

In the organisation where i worked, i tell my juniors to do their job and go home and never do my own job unless i am incapacitated.
The bulk stopped at my table. It did not stop me from recommending them for promotion so long they have done their own jobs.

Till this day the junior staff call me to appreciate the way i made them feel.

Monkey dey work baboon dey chop is what you call loyalty at work place in nigeria.

What do you think we need to do? Piss them off by hiring someone outside who will say the same thing they had always said.

Who you know is better than what you know

The guy who becomes CEO is the guy who is friends with lots of CEOs and simply learns through osmosis how they talk and behave.

What we call good communication and office politics are things people can only learn through experience the earlier the better.