I couldn’t agree more with this premise. People promote those who act like them; the worst of it isn’t that the more competent hit a glass ceiling, but that the ceiling is made up of the lower end of mediocrity. These mid-level managers are schooled in delay and avoidance. They diffuse any sign of tension, in the hope that situations will somehow get resolved without them needing to take a stand. This reverberates throughout the human ecosystem: the level of expectation falls, those coming up learn from the “successful” survivors, and the system perpetuates itself.

Often I hear a forceful leader described as “brilliant but lacking people skills” — and I am a bit dismayed by the need to have someone be soothing and politic, as if we are children whose feelings are delicate and we must be placated to avoid a meltdown. I am not talking about tyrannical sociopaths who use cruelty and intimidation to bolster their power — those people need to be checked by those above them, although they rarely are. The workplace phenomena of hard-driving results-oriented individuals becoming isolated and branded as arrogant is a testament to the power of the herd: there is great safety in numbers, and the phrase “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down” does not only apply to Japan. For a nation of supposed independents, America has its very real conformist tendencies, and the tyranny of the appropriate continues to squelch a lot of brilliance in a lot of places.