I agree that there's a lot of learned behavior here. I feel the same way about my younger self. I also thought I knew better than people above me, and I also n

I agree that there's a lot of learned behavior here. I feel the same way about my younger self. I also thought I knew better than people above me, and I also now recognize that it's not so simple. Even if I was right and we took action based on what I thought was best, there would be effects elsewhere that I hadn't thought of, mostly political effects, which would have larger organizational ramifications. What's more, I have found recently that I've accepted this attitude of "find ways to accomplish goals, don't rock the boat, and find a way to get everyone moving in the same direction without complaining" and a lot of it is really not about "being right" but making it possible for the largest number of people to succeed. Even if I dislike aspects of how we're doing things, I've recognized that it doesn't help the cause to be overly candid about it as that just introduces chaos organizational (it tends to encourage discord and behavior that isn't constructive). The strangest thing about this recent change in behavior is my manager and skip-level manager have both independently suggested I consider management, which was never my goal (still not a goal).