By Rich Bond
Unfortunately for my cousin CJ, a person with a learning impairment, his parents didn’t want to see him fail or to be hurt.
So, they did almost everything for him.
When they died, he was poorly equipped to face the world.
When I started working with CJ (not his real name), he had little self-confidence and would ask me what he should do in detail.
My answer was to ask him what he wanted to do.
Over time, he gained confidence and is now able to function at a much higher level.
It was time consuming and sometimes difficult helping CJ, but I learned a valuable lesson.
There are many instances in life where we need to let our children, or our subordinates, decide for themselves what to do, even if it risks failure.
If we do too much for them in the short-term, we risk serious longer-term consequences.
