Status and credentials aren't necessarily strong indicators of intelligence.

Affluence

"Wealth"

"Edit: Thank you for the gold and silver! I am so rich. Therefore I am smart! S-M-R-T smart!"

– richardec

Money And Brains

"People seem to think if you are rich with a good job you must be smart. Generally speaking I've only met one rich person I would consider smart. The rest? Ooooooof. I seriously wonder how some of them passed gradeschool."

– Cthulhubot666

Walking Encyclopedia

"I was surprised when I learned that knowledge isn't necessarily correlated to intelligence. I met a lifelong academic who knew damn near everything about her topic .... but just the facts. It's like, she was a walking encyclopedia, could cough up any info about her field, but she couldn't really process it that well, or draw conclusions, or apply it to a different topic. It's hard to explain. She had a nice 2TB SSD drive full of info in her head but she had a substandard CPU. Since then I've met several people like that. All academics, but I'm not sure that has anything to do with it."

– SkyPork

Well Connected

"I know it, you know it, everybody knows it! In fact I've got friends in high places, I can't tell you how high, but they're really very high, and they're experts in this stuff, and they always say that VPman is a commenter of world class. They should know, they're experts."

– glorpian

So Precocious

"Being labeled 'gifted' at a young age."

– Gullible-Lobster-590

Certain behaviors and personality traits can be misleading.

The Quiet Observer

"Silence. I’ve been told so many times that I’m thoughtful and a deep thinker but really I can’t figure out what to say lol"

– RecreationalParks

The Saying Goes

"There's a very good saying about that, I may be paraphrasing but I've always heard it as: a wise man speaks because he has something to say, a fool speaks because he has to say something."

– toiner

Way With Words

"A cromulent vocabulary."

– jinxes_are_pretend

"This embiggens me."

– GabersNooo

Big Talk

"Using big words or complicated language when trying to explain something or talking about a difficult subject. The smartest people can actually make it sound simple."

– 18puppies

Judging By Appearance

"I’m living in China right now and everyone keeps calling me intelligent as I’m bald and left handed."

– Halfmoonhero

History has proven leaders don't always make the best decisions.

Appointed Position

"Being in charge."

– Ifyouhav2ask

​Capable Until Proven Incompetent

"Always maintain a healthy skepticism for anyone claiming to be authority, at least till they prove themselves capable."

– Mharbles

Save The Compliments

"if someone’s in an authoritative position, it should be others that praise them and say how good they are, not themselves."

– Safe_Movie_4694

The Peter Principle

'The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter, which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence." Employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another.'

"I once worked for a company where the VP was the living embodiment of the Peter principle. She had been with the company for 20+ years, and somehow got promoted to VP of marketing."

"She very clearly had no idea what she was doing and as a result would end up micromanaging to stay busy. And she loved to come around at 4:30 on the Friday before a holiday weekend to 'say hi,' aka make sure no one was leaving early (we were all salaried)."

"This woman was completely incompetent, had no business managing anyone and didn't understand her duties at all, yet somehow she was an executive and made close to $200K per year. Just by outlasting everyone else."

– TaftintheTub

Administration Levels

"This describes my time working in public education. Many people that reach administrative level positions are wholly incapable."

"You know it's bad when teachers are homeschooling their kids or sending them to private schools rather than enrolling them in the district that employs them."

– Shadowfox_01

A person with a big vocabulary can be deceiving.

I knew someone from work who boasted a huge vocabulary and always sounded like an academic scholar when he spoke at meetings.

My view of him completely shattered when he came in for his shift one morning and seriously asked where he could get some "expresso," "expecially" since he was very tired and could use a pick-me-up.

My colleagues and I just blankly stared at each other since his statements at the time were so jarring.