In time, you may come to understand something that will not merely surprise you, but disappoint you as well.
Not every manager, director or company owner wants strong people beside them. Many will say they value initiative, independence, knowledge and courage, but only until your strength becomes more than they can tolerate.
You will be welcome while you solve their problems, take responsibility and carry what others cannot. While you remain quiet, work and do not take up too much space.
Yet the moment your ability becomes more visible than their title, and your influence greater than the authority their position provides, their attitude toward you may change abruptly.
You will no longer be someone to develop.
You will become a threat to be brought under control.
They will not always attack you openly. That would be too obvious. They will begin withholding information, narrowing your room to act, diminishing your results and leaving your contributions unacknowledged.
Your mistakes will become larger than they are, while your successes become smaller than they truly are. They will praise you where praise means nothing and stop you where you might grow.
And they will present all of it as concern for the system, the team and the hierarchy.
Weak leaders do not need strong people. They need capable followers.
People good enough to carry the burden, but not free enough to begin making decisions themselves. Valuable enough for the company to benefit from them, but suppressed enough never to become more influential than the person sitting above them.
So do not be surprised if they begin to suffocate you precisely when you show what you are truly capable of.
Perhaps the problem is not that you have become difficult to work with.
Perhaps you have simply become too strong to remain someone else’s extension.
And to an insecure person in a powerful position, nothing is more dangerous than a capable person who has finally understood that their own worth requires no one else’s permission.
Reshid Dervishi