The strange thing is that both approaches can be successful!
However, they are not compatible. At most, it's possible to have an out-of-the-box thinker above a team of robots, but that's about the maximum extent of mixing that works.
For example, in the robot-based team, managers generally don't explain any of the inputs and constraints that went into a decision to their underlings. This saves time, allowing them to manage more people to get more done. However, the creative types question everything, which irritates and frustrates them. In an all-creative team, managers will explain the backstory to the junior staff, giving them the information they require to seek alternative but compatible solutions. This takes longer, but then they can offload a lot of the decision making to the juniors.
Don't feel bad that you didn't fit in, it just means that you need to find a place with a corporate culture that suits you better.
Though I feel that delegating decision-making scales way better
For example, when there is an abstract or undefined problem to be solved, the 'free thinking' people are super valuable because they can search for hidden requirements, think about edge cases and most importantly, challenge established ideas to come about with a better solution.
On the other hand, sometimes the solution is clearly known and you just need to grind it out. Think about the code that you've written over and over again (for us it is market data feed handlers) and there's nothing novel about it. Just gotta get the work done. I've seen some people try to reinvent the wheel for these tasks and its just not needed.
We had this joke at one company where we'd say "are you rewriting rsync?" because every once in a while someone would try to do something brand new and shiny when the tech was already defined and the parts needed to be assembled. Conversely, we also had some folks who did things that were incredibly creative and fresh. It's all about balance.