In Chapter 2 of the Rule "Qualities of an Abbot" Benedict discusses how the Abbot should deal with the various personalities and abilities of the monks. His advice? Be adaptive. You can't use a "one size fits all" approach:
Chapter 2This is good advice across the board. For parents especially.
32[The Abbot] must so accommodate and adapt himself to each one's character and intelligence that he will not only keep the flock entrusted to his care from dwindling, but will rejoice in the increase of a good flock.
I often tell my students, when you are getting ready to have your first child you read all these parenting books and get the notion that parenting is like playing offense. You have this plan of child-rearing in your head and when the kid shows up you expect to execute the plan and out will pop, at the end of the training, a final product, the product you planned for and manufactured.
But that's not what parenting is like at all. At all. Parenting isn't playing offense. It's playing defense. The kid shows up, you throw the parenting manuals out the window, and start improvising. Parents, like Benedict's ideal Abbots, "accommodate and adapt" to the child's "character and intelligence."
I also think the same lessons apply to being a good manager in the workplace.
