[dmarg]

Your point is spot on for a good senior level person in any field. Being supportive and letting people fail or succeed with positive reinforcement helps move a working environment in a better direction. When that environment is better then you will attract and retain better quality employees. Win-win all around but just depends on how the senior level people and management act and create that environment in the beginning.

[dohertyjf]

I try to address this by asking a lot of questions about why they're choosing to do something in a particular way. Don't go at it with trying to poke holes in it (which is the point of the original post), but rather to understand what they are doing and why. Ultimately, the job of the senior person/manager is to set the vision/direction and ultimately trust the person to do what's right. This is hard with junior people, but you were allowed to screw up (and succeed) when younger, so allow them to do the same thing :-)