Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu has sparked a conversation on workplace culture with a simple question: should employees wait for instructions from the top, or should they be encouraged to take initiative and act?In a recent post on X, Vembu argued that organisations face a difficult trade-off. A highly structured, metrics-driven workplace may offer employees greater predictability and certainty, he suggested, but it can also create a culture where people wait to be told what to do. On the other hand, an organisation that encourages people to seize the initiative can feel chaotic, argumentative and uncomfortable — but may also produce greater energy and independent thinking.
‘Do people wait for instructions or seize the initiative?’
Vembu framed the debate around two contrasting workplace cultures.“Do people wait for instructions from the top? Or do they seize the initiative and run?” he wrote.According to him, organisations that are heavily driven by metrics can gradually develop a culture in which employees look upwards for direction before acting. Such a system can create predictability because people know who makes decisions and how performance is measured.However, Vembu pointed to a potential weakness in this approach: what happens when those at the top do not know the right course?“If the top always knows how to set the right course” is not guaranteed, he suggested, the organisation can lose its way when initiative is concentrated at the highest levels.For students and young professionals entering the workplace, the observation raises an important question about career growth: is success about following a clearly defined path, or developing the confidence to identify problems and act without waiting for detailed instructions?
Why an initiative-driven culture can feel chaotic
The alternative, according to Vembu, is what he described as a “seize the initiative” culture.But freedom to act does not necessarily mean harmony.Such organisations can witness intense internal disagreements, competing ideas and a persistent feeling that existing work can be improved. Vembu illustrated this with an example from the technology world, joking that every smart programmer tends to look at another programmer’s code and think: “It sucks, I can do better!”The point, however, goes beyond programming.People with strong ideas and high levels of initiative are often willing to challenge existing methods. That can lead to conflict, but it can also lead to experimentation and improvement. In such a culture, Vembu suggested, the external environment — including customers and markets — may ultimately provide the discipline that internal hierarchy does not.
The trade-off: comfortable certainty or individual initiative?
For Vembu, there is no perfect formula.An organisation can provide “comfortable certainty”, but risk weakening individual initiative. Or it can encourage people to act independently, while accepting a degree of discomfort, disagreement and unpredictability.His experience has also made him sceptical of attempts to combine both approaches through excessive control.“We will have a highly disciplined culture of seizing the initiative” can, he argued, produce “the worst of both worlds”.The observation is particularly relevant at a time when workplaces increasingly discuss innovation, autonomy, accountability and performance measurement. Young professionals are often expected to take ownership of their work, while simultaneously operating within tightly defined targets, reporting structures and approval processes.
What can students and young professionals take from Vembu’s post?
Vembu’s argument is not that organisations should abandon discipline or structure. Instead, it highlights a tension that exists in many workplaces: employees need enough clarity to understand their responsibilities, but too much dependence on instructions can discourage independent thinking.For students preparing to enter the workforce, the ability to take initiative may therefore involve more than simply working harder. It can mean identifying a problem, proposing a solution, taking responsibility for decisions and learning to deal with disagreement.The challenge for organisations, meanwhile, may be to create enough certainty for employees to function effectively without making every decision dependent on approval from the top.Vembu’s post ultimately presents workplace culture as a trade-off rather than a perfect equation: certainty can make an organisation comfortable, but initiative may require people to tolerate uncertainty.Disclaimer: This article is based on a social media post shared by Sridhar Vembu. The views and observations expressed in the post are those of the author and are presented for informational purposes; TOI Education has not independently verified or endorsed the opinions or conclusions expressed.
