[vp8989]

Effectiveness at work from what I have observed is mostly about pragmatism and willpower to do what needs to be done in that context. You need some baseline amount of mental horsepower but in most pursuits it's not that high.

Really smart people can be some combination of idealistic, lazy or simply in a context that diminishes their willpower. Therefore their smarts don't really "manifest" in that particular context. I've worked with lots of people who I thought were bozos because they sucked at their programming job but they were clearly smart about other things.