[cmpaul]

This feels a little like a troll, but I'll bite. :)

I'm new to management so I'll be the first to admit that I'm not great at it. I do wish I'd had someone to tell me some of these things when I first started, so you could think of this as advice to my younger self. YMMV.

As for whether asking tough questions makes people feel safe, I'd say, "... maybe?" I can think of hard questions that would certainly make me feel less safe. Two things: 1. Asking the question I lead with got me some great info, so I'm going to continue trying this; 2. I'd want to encourage people on my team to feel able to do the same, so I look at this as leading by example.