As it should be. As a manager, you're better off hiring smart people and letting them do their jobs than hiring complacent people and telling them what to do.
They will question your decisions and directions instead of blindly following them. You can have curious employees, or obedient employees, but usually not both. You can somewhat pave over this with comp (tech does this), but most of the economy cannot.
I’ve always thought of that as something like “first order smart”. Smart enough to start forming opinions fast but not able to decouple from the need to analyze enough to “just work.” Or patience. Or something.
There are many jobs at which I would personally underperform out of sheer boredom, possibly inventing ways to stay entertained. Army Infantry, cashier, call center worker, landscaper, night watchman, and hundreds of others where well over half of the population would outperform me.
