Nobody is coming to decide

The road out of Giza is closed without warning, a line of cones and a police car, and the microbus is full. Fourteen people look at the driver. There is no sign telling him what to do and no one he could phone who would know.

He could wait. He could pull over and let someone else, somewhere, take responsibility for the morning. Instead he turns down a side street he half remembers and gets everyone to the desert road twenty minutes late, which is a great deal better than two hours.

That small turn is the whole idea.

Most of the moments that matter do not arrive with instructions. The rule book was written for a different afternoon. The person who usually decides is not there. The last time something like this happened was not quite like this. And the easy response is to stand still until certainty shows up, so that if it goes wrong the fault belongs to somebody else.

Use your best judgement. It is an unglamorous instruction, and it covers most of what anyone means by leading.

It does not come with a promise. The side street might have been blocked too. It does not come with cover either: if it fails, it was your call, and you carry it.

But the alternative is a bus full of people waiting for permission that is never going to come. Somebody has to choose. The people around you are hoping it will be you, and they are not asking you to be right. They are asking you to move.