"If employees just did what they were told to do, you would continually find defects at the end of the line. We want employees to go beyond what they are told and be creative, building quality into the process." - Mitsuo Kinoshita (Toyota)
I have learned about this for the first time in U.S. Marines c.1995 during Total Quality Management training based on Japanese Kaizen. The young Marine leaders were trained to make independend decisions in case of the interruption of the chain-of-command (death of the superiors) in order to be able to function in chaos of battle, conflicting reports and lack of communication with the outside world.
I modern company it means that the manager is serving as a mentor and instructor that constantly makes the employee responsible for planning, sharing knowledge and executing of the tasks. The manager should faciliate the communications, continous quality improvement, cut the bureaucratic "fat" and inefficiencies (BS). Manager should empower the employees to act and grow, not just do their jobs.
While "running a thight ship" the manager(captain) should strive to achieve a command where each member of the team comes forward with ideas, takes pride and responsibility in the work, grows and learns, transfers knowledge to others and is able to take charge when called upon.
