That can be true, it's also definitely what people say at a failing org that has become bureaucratic and political and doesn't value technical skill. I have seen this first hand. There's such thing as an asshole that nobody can work with of course. But overall it's a red flag when accomplished people leave an org because "it's not for everyone".
I had a coworker once who had as an annual goal "convince the director of engineering of X" - given to them by the Director of Engineering. Dude, you should never have agreed to that. Responsibility for something you have no control over is a bad day waiting to happen.
One of the people who made it on my Never Again list was a technical lead who somehow thought "bring me solutions, not problems" was a reasonable thing for a technical lead to say. In a large, complex system that you built the person who's been there for a hot minute knows enough to see problems but not enough of the interactions to know the solution. You're supposed to tell me how to fix it, or fix it yourself, not deflect. Took a couple years before I could actually fix any of the problems and there are still bits of code that just look like a Shadow over Innsmouth to me.
I don’t think it’s specific to failing orgs. I doubt technical skill is what gets you to the top at Goldman Sachs, LVMH, VW, the US government, or any other incredibly successful organization. At a certain point of scale, any organization is about politics
Politics isn't necessarily some dirty thought-terminating cliche. It did used to have an actual meaning:
>the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power.
As long as you work with people, you will have to engage in some politics. But I guess another definition has become the more popular lately:
>activities within an organization that are aimed at improving someone's status or position and are typically considered to be devious or divisive.
Politics or "people who don't know what they are doing doubling down on decisions or lack thereof and others aligning themselves because they are busy doing stuff and rocking the boat isn't useful unless you have time, mandate and mindshare enough to coordinate with others".
