First, do no harm

When you've got authority, the temptation is to use it — to fix, to push, to make your mark. But power's first job isn't to do good. It's to not do harm. The harm that comes from someone in charge is rarely dramatic. It's the shift cut without warning so a single parent scrambles for childcare. The blame slid onto the quiet one who won't push back. The complaint left to rot because answering it is a hassle. Small uses of power, each one a little wound.

Cicero set the order plainly: "The first office of justice is to keep one man from doing harm to another, unless provoked by wrong; and the next is to lead men to use common possessions for the common interests" (De Officiis 1.20, Miller). First, no harm. Then, the common good. The sequence matters. Plenty of managers reach for the second while quietly failing the first — generous with the team lunch, careless with the person they just steamrolled.

This is the practice that lands this week: before you wield the power you hold, run the cheap, ruthless check. Who does this hurt? If the answer is someone, the cleverness can wait.