Lama Ole’s answer:
You should think that they are buddhas who don’t know it themselves. And then you grab them and tell them off so that they can better get to where they can recognize their buddha nature. If people didn’t have buddha nature, there would be no reason to work with them. That said, even if a teacher has thirty little geniuses sitting in the classroom, he still has to exert some pressure sometimes and say, “Stay in your chair! Stop chewing your pencil! Don’t pull her hair!”—things like that. But it is meaningful because you see that something can come out of it.
On the one hand, you must keep an eye on the relative level or else you won’t know what has to be done. But if you don’t see the absolute level, which is above the relative level, then you’ll make mistakes.