As a "staff-plus" engineer at one of the big tech companies, I find that much of this material is simply not true in practice.
Staff promotions are of course given to some people with a good mastery of soft leadership skills, technical thought leadership and related qualities.
They are also given out for a number of other reasons. For example, when someone is perceived as a flight risk, because it makes their manager look good to promote their team, because someone has been given a lot of responsibility, whether or not they're good at handling it, because it's good for team morale to show that promotion is achievable, or because it can make a headache go away for the manager.
These reasons are all perfectly valid. But let's not overdo the Jedi-like "staff-plus" engineer trope.
Staff promotions are of course given to some people with a good mastery of soft leadership skills, technical thought leadership and related qualities.
They are also given out for a number of other reasons. For example, when someone is perceived as a flight risk, because it makes their manager look good to promote their team, because someone has been given a lot of responsibility, whether or not they're good at handling it, because it's good for team morale to show that promotion is achievable, or because it can make a headache go away for the manager.
These reasons are all perfectly valid. But let's not overdo the Jedi-like "staff-plus" engineer trope.