,... And?

I find myself in the position of being boss nowadays. And I find that being boss, everyone seems to think that I have the solutions. However, everyone I'm supervising has been employed to be able to find solutions.

For the new starts, this is fair enough, they need direction and encouragement; joined-up thinking is a skill that need to be learned. But there is one guy who is quite a lot younger than me but on the same pay scale, and he has started to defer to me more than I think he ought. He tends to put a situation to me and then tail off, expecting me to complete the thought.

I today refused to do his thinking for him, and said, "And?" and waited. And lo and behold, he turned out to be able to finish his job himself.

I'm happy to be the boss, but I'm damned if that means that I'm going to do everyone's thinking for them. We're consultants; even the new starts have PhDs.