Sal’s authority had no walls around it because it was not made of position.

It was made of trust, laid down a day at a time, so slowly and so long that by the time I met him it was simply the shape of the place, the way a riverbed is the shape of forty years of water.

He never raised his voice.

He never pulled rank, because he had no rank to pull.

He led the way the best people lead, which is by so plainly caring more about the thing and the people than about himself that everyone around him quietly decided to follow.