Were I to treat my staff as anything EXCEPT the bright, motivated people they are I'd find myself unemployed so fast I'd be a blur.

I just returned from a training trip to Boise with two of them. My function was schmoozing, paying the motel bill, and so on. Theirs was to absorb as much info as they could about being a center for grant information (we've been named a Cooperating Collection by The Foundation Center). At one point I told them that my job was to see that they had the equipment, training, and so on to do their jobs the best they could; that I was only there to make their job go smoothly. After all, if I, as the boss, don't look out for them, who will? If I don't look out for them, service to the public suffers and the public (bless their unwashed li'l hearts) pay our salaries.

This is also true in the private sector: no customers, no profits; no profits, no salaries and no business.

Must be me, because I can't understand the martinets, the psychos, the power-mad. Yes, I can and have been "firm" when it was needed. But I'd much rather solve the problem than fix the blame, coach rather than dictate, and guide them to the decision I already made.