It is quite important to respect the person's abilities, but not to overestimate them. Because if we overestimate them, then we may not give enough instruction and they may then get into difficulties, and then we may get difficulties. It can often be better to be thorough, letting that person know that we are trying the best we can to make sure that everything is covered.
It can also be a matter of the tone of the speech rather than actually what we are saying. It's the attitude behind how we say it, because the tone of speech and the way we speak to people can impart a sense of looking down or a sense of feeling superior. If we are just imparting information with friendliness then there is not usually a big reaction from the other person, rather they understand that we are in a position of responsibility. It is our responsibility to make sure that everything is covered. If the other person takes it as an affront to their personal ego, that's their Kamma, because no matter how we relate something, we cannot always be assured that the other person is going to be able to receive it in the best way and we can't be changing all the time through fear of the other person taking it personally. There are a lot of people taking a lot of things personally in life.
I have had the experience that just my presence some people take personally, in the sense that because I don't do certain things that they like to do, they think I am judging them, but I am not at all. We can't actually change ourselves every time just to make other people feel comfortable, and if we are in a position of responsibility it is important to make sure that we do give enough instructions to others so we can make sure that the job is done correctly. Otherwise we have to spend a lot of time trying to correct all the problems which arise later due to our own sense of insecurity. We have to look at our own sense of insecurity, are we afraid that these people are going to take things personally, are we afraid of blame? So we have to look at our own practice of the eight worldly conditions when we are in these positions.
Certainly Steve and I are often in the position where we have to give instructions that people don't like, but if we have a compassionate intention, then we feel confident that how we do it is done as best that we can at that time. And hopefully the other person will understand that we are doing it from compassion, not through a sense of trying to control them or to put power over them. In order to know how to give instructions in the best way, it helps if we have our intention correct, focusing on ourselves, getting our intention right to make sure we are doing it with a compassionate intention, rather than through our sense of fear towards blame or praise.
We try to do it with the right attitude in our speech, gentle speech rather than sarcastic speech. As well, we often don't know all about the person's abilities so we can't assume that they know everything that we are trying to impart. If we know the person more personally, it is easier to know what we need to leave out and what we don't have to explain. So our practice when we are trying to relate to other people is to be careful of the eight worldly dhammas and to understand that no matter how we say things some people will take it in a way that we didn't intend, due to their own insecurities.
I have had some experience in trying to give some instruction to people because I know a bit more about things, just regular things about the monastery, etc., but the others took it personally when it wasn't meant that way. So, no matter what we say some people are going to blame us or some are going to take it personally, and we can't allow that to stop us from making sure that everything is covered.