I think what you said about height might be a bit off since you're dismissing the possibility that tall people actually are better at their jobs.

E.g. looks and facial symmetry both correlate with fertility and IQ, probably through the mechanism of mutational load. So you could say, "good looking people make more money" as an example here, but the effect could be from IQ because they actually do go together.

The same could be happening for height. This may be the reason people instinctively are attracted to tall people.