Why can’t you progress in your career?
You know that you’re faster than most at familiarising yourself with new tasks and areas of work. You’re competent and make a great contribution. You’re open and attentive to feedback, and you want to grow both professionally and personally. In spite of this, it’s always someone else who gets promoted and has a glittering career. And you can’t understand why.
This is what I believe may explain it.
The 4 reasons why you do not get promoted
1. You are not playing the game
In any major organisation, people have to play certain games. Political games. Power games. Social games. If you want to get promoted, you have to be able to play the game, whatever that game might be. You have to say the right things, do the right things, have lunch with and meet up with the right people. You have to play your cards – and your talents – both tactically and at just the right moments.
A large number of gifted people cannot be bothered playing the game because they consider it a waste of time.
Some would describe this as staying well clear of the negative B words: Bullshit, Brown-nosing, Backstabbing and Blaming, as well as the Danish for slander: Bagvask/Bagtalelse.
Why can’t you just deliver the goods and be assessed – and preferably promoted – on a professional and objective basis?
As most (if not all) gifted people have asynchronous development, they’ve spent less time playing with children of their own age while growing up because they would rather seek the company of adults or preferred to read books or play computer games. This means that they’ve missed out on role play, competitions and other types of play, which could have taught them the social rules and how to handle themselves around the alpha male or alpha female of a group. As a result, they lack certain social skills that their colleagues possess. And then their colleagues get the promotions.
2. You are far too honest
To reiterate, if you had asynchronous development, you probably haven’t learned what to say and especially what not to say and to whom. So you’ll find yourself giving your honest and unfiltered opinion about one thing or another that doesn’t work as well as you know it could. This might be the workflow, a decision, a process, the involvement or hiring of a certain person, or something else which is strictly professional. Which you then find yourself saying in the departmental meeting – or directly to your boss.
Of course, you say this with the greatest of intentions and because you want what’s best for the company. Unfortunately that’s not the way it’s perceived. On the contrary, you might be seen as disloyal. Or as someone who’s overly critical and always complaining.
Without wanting to, you might become a persona non grata. The management think of you as the thorn in their side that just won’t go away. Until one day they find a suitable reason for letting you go.
See also: High IQ and far too honest
3. You are too impatient
The larger the organisation, the longer the path from decision to action. And the people who make the decisions are neither the ones with their finger on the customers’ pulse nor the ones who empathise with the staff. Things take time. Some things take a lot of time.
As a gifted person, you’re able to figure out and understand complex contexts and therefore also the consequences of a given decision. Or the consequences when you need a decision in order to act, and that decision is not taken.
Then you grow impatient. You give your manager the third degree. Press them for answers. Once again, this is because you want the best for your company and the customers, but you hit those invisible glass walls that are prevalent especially in larger organisations. And once again, you’re seen as someone who’s annoying and far too impatient.
4. You do not admire your boss
Well, you might say, why on earth should I admire my boss?!? It’s just something you have to do. If you want to get promoted, that is. Because if you don’t, you risk being seen as a threat and a competitor.
This will usually be a problem that you, as a gifted person, cannot realise or understand. If you do, you don’t think that your boss has any reason to see you as a threat or a competitor, because surely you’re not interested in their job – you’re just trying to do your own job as well as possible.
If – which is most likely – you’re more intelligent than your boss, you’ll meet that person as an equal. They’ll probably feel that you’ve seen right through them, or at least that they’re being critically assessed. And if you’re being totally honest, you probably don’t think that your boss is so amazing that they deserve your full admiration. You’re able to respect them, but you probably can’t admire them as much. Because it takes a lot for someone to impress you.
Statistically speaking (cf. studies by People Tests Systems), most middle managers have an IQ towards the higher end of the normal range. They’re smart. And they’re often clever, hard-working and good at playing the game, because they already learned to do so while growing up. And that’s why they’ve been promoted.
As a gifted person (top 10%), it is therefore very likely that you’re more intelligent than your boss. If you have a good and emphatic boss who’s able to see your potential and has enough self-confidence that they don’t need to be admired, then it won’t be a problem. But unfortunately, not everyone who’s gifted is so lucky.
On the contrary, many gifted people find that middle managers constitute a kind of impenetrable membrane where great ideas, measures for change and initiatives are stopped in their tracks and killed off too soon. So gifted people eventually become frustrated, disillusioned or impatient, or give up completely. They quit their career and start up as self-employed instead.
Do you see yourself in all this?
Test yourself – are you Impedingly intelligent
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