We give leaders too much credit for having ideas. The image is usually the same: somebody at the top sees what everybody else missed, announces the brilliant solution, and the organization follows. That happens occasionally. Most of the really interesting ideas I’ve seen happen differently. One person knows something. Another person knows something completely different.

One of the easiest ways to get bad information as a leader is to punish the person who gives you information you do not like. You may never announce that disagreement is unwelcome. You probably will not put it in an employee handbook. But people are remarkably good at figuring out what happens when someone challenges the boss. Maybe the person gets cut out of the next meeting. Maybe their idea is dismissed before they finish explaining it.