Avoiding coming off as a "know-it-all" or "arrogant"

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Rigidly held beliefs + inability to read people well = Inadvertently coming off as a "know-it-all" or "arrogant", when you absolutely never ever meant to be How do people check themselves and avoid falling into that trap?

I've been with my company for a few years now, and my current role for the past six months. I had my first review today, and while my manager said the 4 people I effectively report to (I don't work directly with her at all) uniformly gave me very positive reviews, in terms of my ability, project execution, and work ethic. But she also told me that, while caveating that "arrogant" wasn't quite the right word, I am, well, kind of perceived along those lines? A know-it-all; I can present my case in a way that alienates other people and makes them feel like I'm invalidating their opinions.

I'm mortified I come across this way; I would never want to make other people feel bad or upset them. I almost wish my problem was that everybody liked me personally, but I couldn't cut the mustard on the job itself; that would be far better. In addition to not wanting to make people feel bad and coming off like an apparent boar, I'm upset because, honestly, I don't know what I'm doing to give people that opinion, which makes it hard to change. Is it my tone of voice? The words I choose? Pushing on things just a little too hard? I can wrack my brain for the things I do, but, ultimately, a colorblind person will never know he doesn't see certain colors correctly unless someone tells them.

I'm of course going to ask the people I report to who gave this feedback to her, but I'm curious if anyone has run into similar feedback, and how they "tone down" the vibe they give off? What things do you notice are a problem for you that other people have pointed out?

Additionally, have you found that people are more willing to help point out when you cross a line if you disclose? I have never disclosed, nor do I really want to. But giving someone direct feedback on their social skills is pretty uncomfortable for people to do normally, I think. I'm wondering if it's easier to give feedback if it's clear pointing things out as they happen would honestly be really helpful, given the context? Or does it not matter?

I’ve had a tendency to come across as intellectually arrogant, although I’m really quite a considerate person otherwise. When I’m asked a technical question that is in one of my areas of expertise, my natural inclination is to try to form a complete and correct answer and present it in an understandable way. I used to do complex work, and that meant I would spend quite some time describing the problem, analysis, and solution. I could handle some questions, so long as they didn’t derail me from my train of thought. But being autistic, people’s random questions could totally sidetrack me and I would lose sight of what I was trying to describe. So my tendency was to really focus and try to get the whole thing out. The problem was that neurotypical people want to feel they’re part of a joint give-and-take process. By plowing through my communication to its logical conclusions, I was excluding their inputs. I most often had greater depth of knowledge than my coworkers. But they also often had more breadth of knowledge than I did. I would be told that I focused too much on details too early and didn’t focus enough on discussing the big picture. The last thing I intended was to come off as arrogant – I was trying to connect with others and share my insights. So I made efforts to pause and get feedback from others, ask if I was on the right track, and solicit their ideas and inputs. This was quite challenging and I would have to scribble down lots of notes of what they said. So that I wouldn’t lose track of my own thoughts, I’d have my own ideas written down in the form of a numbered outline or presentation, so that I could get my brain back on track after interruptions. I also used to finish people’s sentences if they’d get stuck, and although I was pretty accurate in doing that, I had to stop that too because it can come across as sort of intellectually aggressive. Being autistic, I would see my job as a primarily intellectual exercise, while coworkers would see the job as a group effort – more of a social perspective. It’s hard to tone down that vibe, it’s not really arrogance, just a different way of approaching communication and collaboration. I was also a manager and I learned that feedback is really about helping each of us meet the expectations of leads and coworkers and is really designed to help, so I think that’s what the folks who provided review input for you are trying to do. It's not designed to be any sort of personal criticism, although my tendency was to take it that way at first.
By 'disclose', if you mean disclose autism, I never did that. I know there were others in my department who I interacted with who were autistic, but many people lack much of an understanding of autism, especially adult autism. I had told my supervisors though that getting feedback more frequently helped me and most of them were good about providing enough detail to enable me to make corrective changes.

During college I experienced the issue of being seen as the annoying gadfly who 'swallowed a dictionary'. I'd already gained a reputation as a loner and 'boffin' as they say before, but gaining a few friends meant I suppose, exposing my lack of social skills more to these people.
Thanks to the help of a few groups I currently attend focusing on behaviour and social skills I feel much better at properly reading when someone, e.g. has become bored in a conversation, but during those latter years of education I made more than a few enemies. What I didn't understand at the time was that correcting a person, even a friend in a social setting - or simply expanding upon something they've said - is massively not appreciated. It detracts from their feeling of having something meaningful to say. I don't have a fraction of the social circle I had those days but as a rule, among peers presently I try to stay silent and wait for that enigmatic break in a conversation to say my piece.
Actually, that's one of the hardest things for me to do, especially if I'm dying to say something!

I've been called "brusque" (at work): "don't suffer fools gladly" (my mother).
I refer to myself as an "analytical pedant".
I tend to keep my mouth shut now, but sometimes people err so egregiously that I have to put them right.

I find it you let people be wrong they are inclined to pay more attention to what you said the first time. I just make it clear that I understood them, give them my input, and let them do what they want. But, I'm not signing off on Space Shuttle launches.

As strange as it may seem, I have an issue related to this problem in a strange way. At the university that I work at, there is a fellow professor within the same department that is known as the "Know-it-all" smart a$$. Basically, he only teaches the top 10% of his students and bombs the rest. He personally hates me because I have proven to know at least as much as he does, yet I do not lord it over everyone like he does. I know this because several coworkers have pointed that out to me. People put up with him because they believe that he might be on the spectrum, yet I can see many things that point the other direction (narcissistic sociopath is my best guess on him).

I pushed myself to learn things because I didn't want to be seen as dumb and ignorant. Unfortunately, I spent too much time reading and stayed indoors much of the time. I decided to change that after finally getting my driver's license at 48. My tennis instructor said to strike a balance between an indoor and an outdoor life, which I am doing enthusiastically.

I've gotten similar feedback at work. One suggestion I was given was to give everyone a chance to express their ideas and ask questions about their ideas so they feel validated ... even if I know they are wrong ... let them get it out. And sometimes strategic questions can help them to come to understand something on their own instead of me "pushing" it at them. It's not easy or natural for me but I've gotten better at it. I'm not sure this applies for your line of work.

A big benefit to listening that all the extra information provided may allow you to figure out the actual issue at hand.

You don't want to be give the "right answer" to the wrong question. It takes a real expert to figure out what question should have been asked.

One consequence of being smart is that you are seldom impressive to unimpressive people. Ignorant people often mistake brevity for hubris and often pride themselves too in their perceived intelligence. However, if you need to work with them, you can try a bit of self-deprecation before showing them what you got.

“You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.” -Richard Feynman

Thanks for everyone's feedback on this (and sorry it took me so long to respond!). I went out on vacation just after my review, and I only just recently managed to talk to the people who gave my manager that feedback.

Interestingly, it wasn't as bad as I feared; I don't know if I blew it up in my head (as I am wont to do with soft skills, as I know I'm not stellar at it), or if my manager overstated it. But the people I talked to made it sound like it was... not a huge thing? (Interestingly, the person I was sure that "arrogant, know-it-all" feedback was coming from, didn't think I was at all...). No one could cite any specific examples, nor did they say it was a frequent vibe they got, just an occasional vibe. The most concrete feedback I got was "you understand things quickly and very deeply, far more than other people, which is a good thing, but sometimes you can come off as having tunnel vision on how to improve X and state it very matter-of-factly, since you're much closer to X and already know it needs XYZ or that ABC won't work". Across the board, people agreed that I am direct and matter-of-fact, which they overall liked, but that could rub some people the wrong way.

In keeping with what people said here about making sure the other person can follow your train of thought and feel like their opinions are validated, I think that is a point of improvement for me. It's not that I think people's suggestions are dumb or not worth hearing; I work with some really smart people who I respect immensely, so I just kind of assume the conclusion I've come to is as clear to them as it is to me. I'm thinking maybe I need to take a step back, affirm people's thoughts more thoroughly, and then explain my thought process and how I got to my final conclusion. If I just state "no, that won't work, we need to do X," people feel like their opinions weren't heard or that I didn't like them. But they'd probably feel more heard if I agreed that would be a good idea, and something worth considering, but there are XYZ obstacles, and maybe we could do ABC instead because of XYZ reasons?

A few people mentioned coming across as more direct over writing than in in-person. That's another pain point, since in verbalizing, you tend to explain a bit more and give off nonverbal cues. I've been told before that while I'm a generally direct and candid person, it's not jarring in person and I mean well. But e-mail contains none of those nonverbal cues, so my directness can sound cutting and terse. Luckily, you can take all the time in the world to craft emails... so I just have to edit what I write more.