But strategic planning and operational change fall to zealots not just because they have a revolutionary temperament, but because the organizational structure has affirmed their ability to keep moving in new directions. A typical zealot changes the business model repeatedly, and with it, the way he or she does business. Aligning people to value. The skills and capabilities needed for high-performance operations have crossed a threshold of complexity during the last decade. At the end of the day, a zealot-driven business is defined by its human leadership and relationships.
Many organizations espouse empowerment.
This is precisely because of the tension the zealot creates. Zealots can manage this, however, because of the effort they put into establishing trust and credibility. In most bureaucratic environments, credibility is granted to the institution. But people are not willing to trust an institution when they are called upon to do something that nobody has done before. Those are the times when they need to be able to put their trust in a person.