Do Initiators fit for Managerial job ?
“You can’t cross a sea by merely staring into the water”, Rabindranath Tagore. This goes apt for people who are scared to dive in to the ocean of initiatives.
Yes, there is risk when one is taking an initiative and, while one is at the shore thinking you are safe. But, for how long would one be safe. When one is sitting by the shore, the waves of progress are certainly not going to hit him/her.
A very nice example that can be used here is that of Apple Inc. the organization. Remember a time when Steve Jobs was not a part of the company, for a period of 20 years.
What happened to Apple then? It merely kept working and re-working on its Macbook till a time people just got bored of Apple. At one point, people even stopped talking of the organization. After this gap, where Apple went on to become a secondary brand and, other brands went on to rule, Steve Jobs was reappointed.
A classic visionary he was! He innovated the way people listened to music, watched videos, used their phones and worked on their gadgets. In came, iPod, iPad and iPhone and, with every version of these gadgets, something new was introduced.
He managed the show perfectly till death. One can see that even when he was nearing his death, he managed Apple’s show just about great. There were no real competitors for Apple at this point.
It takes an initiator to take the risk and move ahead. Nobody in their dreams would have thought that Apple would gear back to position one so soon but, it did. It took that initiator to manage the show and, get the organization back to the ruling class.
Ideas just sit there if there is not person to take an initiative over an idea. At one point the organization needs a person who can take initiatives and work towards the single vision of the organization.
A manager should not only take initiatives but also empower the employees to take initiatives. Only then can the company’s vision be accomplished.