#silverlining

But I don't know how much that mitigates the damage. If good leaders spend all their time cleaning up the mess left behind, it goes pretty far in preventing anything really good from happening.

Part of being a good leader (IMHO) is realizing you’re going to be spending time mitigating the actions of others who derail progress, for whatever reason (intentional & unintentional). You are the tip of the spear, blocking the impediment of progress for those who report to you.

I do a whole lot of that. I have aspirations of someday getting paid for (some of) it.

Based on my limited knowledge of you from your HN posts and your history in corporate america, you’d be a great fit for a Chief Of Staff role, or any other executive role where you’re unblocking progress through mediating relationships (internally) and partnerships (externally).

This seems orthogonal. You project incredibly lot to parent description that basically described someone boring - your average worker that does his job and causes no problems to anyone. Not all that great innovative improvement either which seemed to be his complain.

People who don't follow advice and insist on going out of box all the time tend to generate even more mess behind. And are not great leaders either.

There is plenty of middle ground between those two extremes. It is not a given that someone who can take a stand will pathologically feel the need to make a stink about absolutely every little thing and refuse to ever listen to any advice at all.