They say to never meet your heroes because they will only disappoint you.
I say to be careful who you admire in your career, because chances are they are a mess disguised as a genius corporate executive.
I can't begin to tell you the number of corporate leaders I have come across in my career who are absolute disasters. They can't make decisions, they struggle to handle tough conversations, they have horrible time management, or they are rude, arrogant, or just aren't that smart.
But they've learned how to play the game, they understand corporate politics, and they have found a way to show up just enough without someone calling them on it. Somehow, these people get through the cracks and exist in every organization.
The purpose of this article isn't for me to tell you that you work with idiots. You already know that. The purpose of this article is to remind you that the people you most admire might not be as put-together as you think.
Now, it's not my place to take this one step further and tell you to stop admiring them, and don't listen to them, and avoid them. That's not what I'm here to do. What I am here to do is to tell you to learn the best parts from everyone, and stop idolizing people blindly without truly understanding who they are.
Because the truth is that most careers are built around perception long before they are built around substance. The person standing on the stage, the one presenting the strategy, or the executive running the meeting often looks polished from a distance. They speak confidently, they use the right language, and they carry themselves like they have everything under control. But once you spend enough time around them, you start to notice the cracks that were hidden behind the performance.
You realize that the person you assumed had all the answers is often guessing their way through situations just like everyone else. They are making decisions with incomplete information, avoiding difficult conversations they should probably be having, and occasionally leaning on confidence to cover up the fact that they are figuring things out in real time.
In other words, they are human, and the sooner you accept that reality, the sooner you stop placing people on pedestals that they never asked to be placed on in the first place.
This is actually good news for your career, because the moment you stop believing that everyone above you has some secret playbook that you are missing, you begin to realize that the gap between where you are and where they are might not be nearly as wide as you once thought.
Most organizations are filled with people doing the best they can with the tools they have, and occasionally, a few of them simply become very good at projecting confidence while they sort things out behind the scenes.
So instead of spending your time idolizing the people around you, spend your time studying them. Pay attention to what they do well, take notes on the habits that actually move things forward, and quietly discard the behaviors that create chaos, confusion, or frustration.
Careers are built by collecting useful lessons from dozens of people along the way, not by believing that one impressive title means someone has life completely figured out.