Most managers assume that giving clear instructions is the hard part of leadership — but the harder part is knowing when to stop instructing. The 16th-century essayist Michel de Montaigne observed that we rarely learn anything from people who are trying to teach us; we learn from people who are genuinely curious alongside us. This maps onto something researchers in organizational behavior now call 'psychological safety' — but Montaigne's version cuts deeper: it's not just that people need to feel safe to speak, it's that a manager's certainty actively shrinks the room. The most practical move you can make this Monday is to replace one directive you were planning to give with a question you actually don't know the answer to. Not a coaching question — a real one. Watch what the other person does with the space.

In the last week, what did someone on your team figure out that you would have just told them — and what did that cost them in learning?

Drawing from Renaissance Humanism / Essayist Tradition — Michel de Montaigne