In my experience, you're not talking about the ones who are significantly smarter, just the ones who think they are. They intimidate coworkers not because they're smarter, but because they're obnoxious egomaniacs who never stop talking long enough to listen to people who are trying to communicate to them how very wrong they are.
I don't think it's so black and white.
Very smart people intimidate or otherwise engender negative reactions in people who aren't as smart without even being aware of it. Using "big words," long or complex sentences, and showing signs of nuanced thinking can all be interpreted as being an obnoxious egomaniac who's out to prove you're better than everyone else. So can arguing passionately about something.
The smart person may have
no idea that s/he's using "big words" because they're just everyday words to the speaker. And likewise, no clue that making a point based on evidence or logic may not be appreciated by others who have trouble following the logic.
I never said it was black and white. I was obviously generalizing, and I prefaced it with "in my experience." Obviously, my experiences with people who are "significantly smarter" are different from the norm. They're rarer, and less significant.
With that said, there are a number of ways a very intelligent person can communicate that are effective in avoiding negative feelings. First and foremost among them is remembering to have respect for each other, rather than assigning a personal value to an individual based on perceived intelligence.
I don't care how "dumb" someone may seem, they know something that I don't. As an IT worker, I often have to extract some useful information from a clueless end user who doesn't even know they have the info I need, what "useful information" even looks like, etc. So I approach it from the perspective that they're the expert in their particular application or process, please educate me. The other guys I mentioned would generally have a different approach: "What did YOU do?!"
