Yeah, and i’m going to take a stab in the dark and guess that it’s the first one much more often than anyone here would like to admit.

Developers love to act like they understand every other profession and skillset, just by intuition. It’s not incompetent to do things that you wouldn’t do, or to do things that upset you, or to do things that don’t put your desires first.

Also, promotions can be a different job.

I've seen a few senior developers who weren't great programmers, but could communicate effectively, manage up and down, etc. So long as they were willing to defer to others on harder technical topics, they usually made pretty good team leads when/if promoted.

The person the company owner promoted ahead of me had me fired. I was principal designer for the company's main solutions.

He couldn't design or write software solutions. He then stole source code I wrote along with product designs I created and went to the competition. Was taken to court and settled. Competitor never hired him. Schadenfreude!

Never underestimate ass kissers and yes-men. It works wonders on narcissistic people.