Do you feel like you are a top performer? You work extra hours and on the weekends. You feel you are responsive, collaborative, and well-liked by your peers. Despite these traits, your idiot coworkers get promoted and you don’t.
Have you ever quit a job because of a bad boss or inequities? If you have, it may comfort you to know you aren’t alone. According to a 2015 Gallup survey, one in two U.S. workers has felt compelled to make the same decision. Gallup published a report, “State of The American Manager: Analytics And Advice for Leaders,” which reveals that organizations are inherently bad at choosing people for management roles. That partly explains why your idiot coworker gets continuous praise, special projects, and promotions.
Here are five common reasons your idiot coworkers get a promotion, praise, rewards, and recognition and you don’t.
You Are in a Fear-Based Organization
Fearful managers will elevate idiots because they want to be surrounded by other fearful people. So, they will offer praise and reward, posh assignments and special projects, and advancement opportunities to less competent people. Ego is what drives a fearful manager. They fear someone might challenge them, or show them up for being an impostor at work. In other words, they aren’t as skilled or talented as they have sold themselves to be.
Furthermore, their ego is more important to them than business results. As a result, they will elevate, praise, and promote your idiot coworkers because they are non-threatening. Non-threatening is the best thing anyone can be in a toxic workplace. Therefore, idiot coworkers get promoted to higher positions because they are non-threatening.
Your Idiot Coworker Has Exceptional Political Skill
Someone with political skill has a positive social capability that enables them to network, influence others, demonstrate social keenness, and appear sincere in their interactions with others. When a coworker has a highly rated political skill, they are more likely to receive a high-performance rating. Because they are viewed as a high-performer, they are more likely to get promoted.
According to a survey by Robert Half, 56 percent of employees reported unfair political movements within their workplace. Office politics uses power and social networking to achieve changes that benefit the organization or individuals within it. However, toxic people will leverage office politics for personal gain, and that is how idiot coworkers get notoriety and promoted.
Your Idiot Coworker Manipulates Their Way Into a Promotion
Manipulative coworkers craft a one-sided story to win respect from leadership. They place unwarranted blame on others and lie or exaggerate their experiences and skills. Manipulative coworkers put others down to lift themselves up. They manufacture fires to give the appearance they saved the business. Furthermore, manipulative coworkers embellish their success and as a result, are more likely to get promoted.
Because it is never their fault, they seemingly have the experience and qualifications, and there is a perception of success, they have a higher chance of getting promoted. The smoke and mirrors approach to managing their career helps them advance with little effort. Additionally, this coworker often has a narcissistic personality, which allows them to fit in and be likable.
Your Coworker Fits the Mold
If you look at the organization’s management and see commonalities, it could indicate your idiot coworker fits the mold. While many organizations emphasize they hire the brightest and best candidates available, the individual hiring managers may not follow suit. These hiring managers operate under an unspoken concept of who represents a desirable employee.
Your idiot coworker may represent an image your boss is trying to build. Perhaps it is smiley, happy, and talkative extroverts. Maybe it is a fresh, young, and vibrant image they desire. Of course, that puts the organization at risk for an age discrimination lawsuit. Age discrimination is far more rampant than believed but goes unchallenged legally. Your idiot coworker got promoted because they fit the mold.
You Prefer to Find Fault in Others Rather Than Yourself
Focusing on other people’s skills, intelligence, work effort, etc. makes you feel better about yourself. Or, you could have misaligned expectations of your coworker, which causes you to label them an idiot. Even more, the things that cause you to think your coworkers aren’t deserving of their promotion could be things you dislike most about yourself. Below are the core causes of finding fault in others:
- Insecurity – Insecure people will only feel good about themselves by finding fault in their coworkers.
- Self-defense – You are defending yourself by finding fault in your coworkers. You discredit them to justify your unsatisfactory career.
- Unhealthy expectations – You have unhealthy expectations of your coworkers, so you focus on their inadequacies rather than celebrating their little victories.
- Superiority complex – you are projecting an exaggerated feeling of being better than your coworkers. To feel superior to them, you have to put them down.
Spending your time finding faults in your coworkers is tragic. When you are so focused on finding faults, you are missing an opportunity to look within yourself. It causes you to avoid working on yourself. We are all imperfect beings. Everyone has faults, makes mistakes, and will let others down. You have to make allowances for others to make mistakes instead of focusing on them.
Please note it is healthy and human to be critical of others from time to time. The people I am referring to above are those who jump from one negative criticism about others’ to another and rarely offer praise and support.
