Let us start by saying I have a healthy ego. It has taken me years to reconcile the fact that being right about a question, subject, or topic does not equate to being effective. Interestingly, it is the smartest people in the room that are most likely to derail an otherwise effective meeting or project (often unintentionally). Seeing someone else be wrong can set about a series of events that ends unglamorously for all involved.
You can be right or you can be effective. You can rarely be both.
I find it fascinating how often people put themselves into buckets as if that gives them a rationale to stop learning a difficult skill. “I’m an introvert” is not a good enough reason to neglect to work on interpersonal skills. “I don’t do numbers” is not a good enough reason to not learn the basics of Excel and how to look at things on your own. No one is perfectly rounded in their skills and experience, the question should be are we working to improve.
To this end, the smartest person in the room usually stands out like a sore thumb to all involved because they have not taken the time to excel at silence, listening, and humility. I’m often guilty of this myself. I jump in to answer questions that were not necessarily posed to me. I find myself anticipating what someone else is about to say and answering before they finish. I can occasionally get a bit upset when someone is so wrong as to have lost the path. It is in these moments that I have to most remember that these are not positive traits, they are negatives. They are preventing me from being effective and getting the job done.
Being smart does not give allowance to also be a jerk. People skills often count more than brains in the world of business. Having empathy trumps having the right answer. Showing compassion moves people toward the goal more than a complex, well-thought-out Gantt chart.
The real smartest person in the room is the quiet person who has orchestrated events so that the difficult questions have already been agreed, has set aside their ego to give credit to the senior person who cares about being listed as the leader, and has convinced everyone else to move in the same direction. This is the person who often gets far less credit than they deserve because their job is to herd the cats in a way that makes it seem as if no herding was done at all.
If you do not know who on your team is the one filling this role, you should probably search a bit. I guarantee someone is doing it somewhere.