Does organizations like followers or innovators

I remember my earlier boss and company founder saying, their are three types of individuals you will find in today's organizations; a. Individuals with less energy to perform and go ahead and have very less appetite in their belly. They are happy to work on routines and have very less aspirations in life. b. Individuals with a latent hunger and always hibernating with their ideas and actions. They just need the spark to rise up and do the best and finally c. the challengers, individuals who are the leaders marching from front and leading the organization to the pinnacle of success.


In today's organizations, it is very difficult to find the third level of leaders who take enough joy and happiness in doing something with holistic thoughts of organization building. Every body wants to be a good subordinate to a good boss and in this process they develop a habit of nodding their heads to all possible ideas, thoughts and dialogues. Fear for challenging the status quo, thinking in different or for the mere shake of favoritism, individuals develops the state of 'learned helplessness'. They develop a thought process which helps them think that whatever is doing around is good if not at least for them rather than the organization.

Their are few bosses in today's organizations, who will like a subordinate to challenge his views, ideas or actions. Even do they agree in public, at the back of the mind, the resistance is buried deep? Very few managers are inclined towards learning new ideas from their juniors. Sometimes, in some organizations, challenging the status quo is itself a sacred cow and such organizations are engraved with the institutional leadership principle of one man / one generation ideology.

Developing openness to ideas, thoughts and new actions requires organizations to develop and create a culture of transparency, ownership and innovation which is driven by a bottom up approach.

How???? Ideas are invited ......please share.