When your project's leadership consistently backs questionable decisions, people usually blame incompetence. But that's rarely the real issue.

Think about it: if your core team members keep nodding along to ideas that tank the roadmap or alienate the community, the problem isn't their intelligence level. Something else is driving it.

Maybe it's the structure—senior voices dominate every discussion, so junior members stop speaking up. Maybe it's fear of conflict, so everyone defaults to consensus even when consensus is wrong. Could be groupthink, confirmation bias, or just a culture where pushing back feels risky.

Or sometimes the smartest people in the room are actually the quietest, watching a bad decision unfold and staying silent because they've learned that contradicting leadership doesn't end well.

The real diagnostic: look at your decision-making process, not your team's résumés. Are dissenting opinions actually invited? Do people feel safe disagreeing? Can debate happen without career consequences?

Fix those dynamics, and suddenly your team's decision quality shifts—not because smarter people showed up, but because the smart ones already there can finally speak.