Read the passage and answer the following questions
Among the many requirements placed on those who take responsibility for the performance of others, there is one that is rarely mentioned. Yet, ironically, it may be the most important because so much else depends on it. That fundamental requirement is courage.
We don’t just mean the courage to make hard decisions or take tough actions, such as giving difficult feedback, denying a promotion to someone who’s good but not good enough, cutting popular but unsuccessful programs, or even laying off people when the economy goes bad.
We mean all that — those and similar actions do require courage — but we also mean something even harder: the need to see ourselves as others see us, even when others’ perceptions don’t match our own. Risking the possibility of finding out that others don’t consider us the capable, well-intentioned bosses we think we are requires enormous courage.
We know a highly competent and caring manager whose people had to spend several late nights completing an important project. Though the work didn’t require her presence, she stayed late, too, as a way of sharing their burden and showing her support and appreciation. Weeks later, only after she thought to ask, she learned that those who stayed late resented what she did. Rather than seeing her presence as a sign of her support for them, they took it to mean she didn’t trust them to complete the work on time. Her presence thus weakened the bonds among them all and achieved the opposite of her intentions. She found this out only because she happened to ask casually.