Exactly. So a productive employee is one who identifies a problem and knows which of the following to do:
- fix it themselves without anyone asking
- bring it up to higher management
- deprioritize it based on severity and leadership initiatives
This is the pattern taught by Jethro to Moses in the Old Testament:
every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee.
But it can’t function any other way. You are a filter of small problems for everyone in the org higher than you. If you bring up everything up the chain your level may as well not exist.
There are many places out there where individual contributors are agency-less executors.
I don't think it ever worked. (Remember when Japan destroyed the world's car industry just by changing that single thing? And that's industry work, highly repetitive and formalized.) But that never stopped managers from doing something.
- fix it themselves without anyone asking - bring it up to higher management - deprioritize it based on severity and leadership initiatives
This is the pattern taught by Jethro to Moses in the Old Testament:
every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee.