[itronitron]

>> it can be beneficial to act "irrationally"

I have seen this pursued with gusto as a career development strategy on occasion and it works rather well unfortunately. The basic approach is to be so outlandish, unprofessional, and unreliable that capable and rational colleagues will pick up the slack, confident that the crazy person will be quickly gotten rid of due to their bad behavior, however that very rarely happens. The irrational actor ends up being promoted because they are the most visible person on the project as everyone else is in hiding in anticipation of a shit-storm.

[raxxorrax]

I have seen that too. Some even got promoted to break in some hardened structures in companies.

It can have appeal to some. And there is the fact that the standard 100% professional corporate culture is extremely unappealing and in contrast to such behavior.

[IAmEveryone]

That sounds more like an application of signaling theory, I e. “They must be very smart to be allowed this behavior”.

The canonical example for OP is the “mad man” strategy Reagoj supposedly followed.