Schools condition us to accept social hierarchy and to fear authority - Both of these are counter-productive to achieving success in real life. I have spent mu

Schools condition us to accept social hierarchy and to fear authority - Both of these are counter-productive to achieving success in real life. I have spent much of my adult life trying to unlearn these lessons. It's really hard work - Being compliant was practically part of my personality. A side effect of this education which I carried into my professional life was that I often ended up telling my bosses what they wanted to hear instead of what they needed to hear - That might work in sales, but it's not great in engineering. It was mostly because I had this deep seated fear of authority and didn't want to upset them with my words. Also, strangely, it seems that a lot of project managers tend to react more negatively to cynical projections than actual missed deadlines... Which only reinforces the pattern.