>"hard but not so hard as to be impossible" goals at any level is really more of an art than a science back then a woman in USSR army, a low level commander, w

>"hard but not so hard as to be impossible" goals at any level is really more of an art than a science back then a woman in USSR army, a low level commander, when I asked about how she manages to maintain her authority in those conditions explained to me that you do have to run your soldiers hard, yet giving impossible to complete order is the fastest and surest way to lose respect of your soldiers and as result to lose real authority over them, and to walk that fine line the key thing is to truely know your stuff (they were some very technical radar service department). I do live by her words - the fist thing I determine about my superiors is whether they know the stuff, and thus how much respect, if any, I should give to them and to their orders :)