I’ve been struggling a little bit with this myself, and while I don’t think it’s been a massive problem for me (yet), I am aware of it.
I have a very assertive personality, which has done wonders for my career despite my average technical competency. Managers love to hear from me because I have (and have been told so) good communication skills, specifically the ability to quickly summarize pros and cons of solutions, while keeping extreme fairness in my technical judgements. On top of this, my “fearless” (asshole?) personality makes me treat everyone in the hierarchy (including VPs and upper management) as peers, and I have no problem arguing with them if I feel I have a reasonable technical issue I care about and diverging opinions from theirs.
Most of my brilliant coworkers, much more technically talented than me, tend to be more introvert and never “pick an argument with management”, which also means they never get the visibility I get, which results in public praises, financial incentives, and interesting work. I wonder if they perceive me as asshole.
I can find myself in your description. One thing I conscientiously do in the hope of not being an asshole is using my assertiveness to publicly praise those brilliant introvert coworkers that I feel deserve more recognition than they get.
I have a very assertive personality, which has done wonders for my career despite my average technical competency. Managers love to hear from me because I have (and have been told so) good communication skills, specifically the ability to quickly summarize pros and cons of solutions, while keeping extreme fairness in my technical judgements. On top of this, my “fearless” (asshole?) personality makes me treat everyone in the hierarchy (including VPs and upper management) as peers, and I have no problem arguing with them if I feel I have a reasonable technical issue I care about and diverging opinions from theirs.
Most of my brilliant coworkers, much more technically talented than me, tend to be more introvert and never “pick an argument with management”, which also means they never get the visibility I get, which results in public praises, financial incentives, and interesting work. I wonder if they perceive me as asshole.