For individual, productivity is measured on multiple axis - new long-term features, throw-away and prototypes, code maintenance, fire-fighting, code reviews, high-level design, outside-of-team communications, intra-team communications (for example helping teammates), archeology, specific parts of your project, probably others. In ideal team, everyone is strong on at least one or two axes, so no person is worse than others. In real teams, I've seen people who were weak on every single axis and did not seem to improve with time. I've also seen people who are great at everything, and it's extremely nice when such people exist - but they are very rare.
(Btw, re your specific example: if you weren't productive because you were waiting for others to approve your access then you were not productive. There is nothing complex about this, there were plenty of times when I've said, "I did nothing for project S last week because they still could not give me access")
