[knightofmars]

These people are dangerous and the ones I watch for the most. I see them as a somewhat dark manifestation of the "Peter Principle". They are charismatic people full of ambition who want to climb the corporate ladder but lack the skills, leadership ability, and knowledge to actually do so based on merit. Some common behavior I have observed, 1) they never deliver bad news to leadership and are willing to lie or misrepresent to achieve this 2) they never will be responsible for the failing project (which they've caused to fail) and will immediately find a way to move to another project 3) they take credit for all successes regardless of their involvement in those successes 4) over represent their own contributions and constantly talk how busy they are and how little work everyone else is doing.

Combining the above they will move from project to project and position to position once a year or sometimes two years leaving the team or some poor soul who was recently promoted to take over their mess. Then when the project continues to fail they can shake their head to their boss and say, "Everything was on track when I left project. They must have really gone away from the original design for this to happen."