No, they are not a pretty recent development at all. The historical common-case is leaders taking credit for the good thinking of their underlings.

I agree that there are (probably a lot of) cases where creative thinking from rank-and-file members helps the organization as a whole; however my claim is that obedience also helps the organisation in other ways (coordinated action, less time spent on discussion, less changes of direction), and cases where the first effect is stronger than the second are rare until recently.

i.e. (content warning: speculation and simplification!) you may have had medieval construction companies/guilds where low-level workers were told to Just Obey Or Else, and when they had good ideas supervisors took credit, but it's likely that if you had switched there organization to a more "democratic" one like (some) modern organisations, the organization as a whole would have performed less well.

I don't have any in-depth knowledge of the history of organization, I just think that "The vast majority of all historical incidences of blind obedience have ended up being Bad Ideas" is a nice-sounding slogan but not historically true.

And, frankly, your underestimation of the necessary intelligent thought to run most organizations is kinda... ugh.

I specifically referred to non-leader members, i.e. rank-and-file. Which is, like, the opposite of what you seem to be reading into my comment.