Administrative positions are often filled by people who are very articulate. The best candidates are those who don’t sacrifice communication clarity to satisfy social expectations. However, one doesn’t want to alienate co-workers by moving about the office with an air of superiority. There needs to be a comfortable relationship between administrators and employees so that employees aren’t intimidated into silence.

I watched a program about NASA launching the Mars rovers. The NASA project manager was talking to this guy who represented a company that built a component which would have to withstand considerable pressures while descending to Mars. NASA wanted to know if it was a good idea to test the durability of this million dollar part now or later. Doing it later would allow the company to modify it to make it stronger but would also potentially delay the launch for months (they only want to launch when the planets are lined up right, minimize distance etc.). The company representative, some scientist, was sidestepping the question. Then the NASA manager put it blunt, something to the effect of “Is the risk of destroying this part small enough to go through with testing or not?”