[gyulai]

"Learned helplessness" as a psychological phenomenon relates to situations where the individual assumes they are powerless to change certain things, but they actually are not.

A lot of the time, when one is an individual contributor in an engineering team, that is not the case. Rather it is the case that you really are powerless.

That's an important distinction to make. Don't assume that your struggle is with internal psychological forces, when your struggle really is with your teammates and the team's power structure.

[kuu]

I agree, and I think until certain point you need to assume that you'll be powerless in some aspects. You cannot change it all and you need to accept certain amount of being powerless.

The key is to find the proper amount...