If you want to maintain an existing site where little innovation is possible/ desired, then don’t mislead a creative thinker by suggesting there are blue skies to be explored. It shall create frustration for both parties. In this case, you need a worker bee type. If you want true innovation, to create something that’s never been tried/ created before, management needs to understand to treat the team as a collaborative space with strong leadership to guide, NOT tell the team how to create/ solve the problems.

OLD school thinking: hover over your team & micro manage to control outcome.
NEW thinking: trust you hired the right team, let them create!

Thanks for bringing to light a greatly needed perspective which can help us advance our industry’s ability to compete with gusto, not just keep up with the Jones.

I have had both scenarios in my experience, working with someone better than I was and being better than the one with whom I was expected to work.

If anyone tells me that either is a cake walk, he does not know what he is talking about. Both are extremely stressful situations and unless you are the owner manager, you are constantly walking on the razor’s edge.

Management and Leadership have been milked beyond their real value. You can have one without the other and also both and all three situations work under certain circumstances, just as much as they fail under certain circumstances.

One tries one’s best given the circumstances and adapts to the given situation to the best of one’s ability and performs. This cannot be constant and consistent. Flexibility is the key and a keen sense of the other person’s inner working helps.