A lot of people fail up because weak people are afraid of competence & comfortable around lazy mediocracy. So in the corporate & bureacratic world coworkers will literally urge the competent person to do less, & middle management will see them as a threat. They might screw with their schedule or otherwise purposely try to drive them away while favoring those they are sure lack the ability to advance very far.

Hiring one or two shitty people can literally wreck a whole business.