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What may be a less morbid equivalent of the idiom "Giving someone enough rope to hang himself"?
In other words, an idiom for empowering someone with a capability that they might, through ignorance, misuse to self-detrimental effect.
The motivation for an alternative is the professional setting, where it's not appropriate to allude to suicide!
More of a phrase than an idiom, but...
set someone up to fail / set someone up for failure
From Wikipedia (I know, I know... but it's the best source I could find):
Setting up to fail is a well-established workplace bullying tactic.[6][7][8] One technique is to overload with work, while denying the victim the authority to handle it and over-interfering;[9] another is the withholding of the information necessary to succeed.[10]
If a person puts another individual (usually a subordinate) in a stressful situation in which failure is almost certain, this may be an aspect of bullying wherein the outcome can then be used to discredit and blame the victim.[11] Sometimes, this may involve the bully covertly sabotaging and undermining an objective that may have otherwise been achievable. This type of bullying may be the result of the projection of the bully's own feelings of inadequacy onto the victim.[12]
There can be cases where an employee is set up to fail because the stated goals of the task are considered harmful to the organization; an internal investigation is one example. Institutions may protect themselves by "going through the motions" of a sham investigation in which the findings conveniently fail to find any evidence of wrongdoing by the authorities involved with setting up the investigation.
From the Harvard Business Review:
That was specifically about employees and bosses, but it's possible for parents/children, co-workers, teammates... any number of relationships. Even yourself!
As I have already implied in my comment, I see nothing morbid about “giving someone enoucgh rope to hang themselves”, and I do not think there is an exact equivalent.
However a form of anodyne words to convey the requirements of the poster using an idiomatic expression, might be
To encourage someone to bite off more than he can chew
This differs from a straight idiom-for-idiom equivalence, in that my addition of “to encourage” is needed to cover the act of “giving”, satisfying the poster’s “empowering” (his words, not mine). His reference to “a capacity”, expressed by “enough rope” in the original idiom, implies surplus capacity — a limited amount of rope would be enough, but more is given to allow “misuse to self-detrimental effect” (in the words of the poster). I would suggest that “more than he can chew” embodies the same idea of “surplus capacity” (“capability” in the words of the poster) with the “self-detrimental effect” being merely implied — indigestion? choking? embarassment at having to spit the meat out? — but clearly there.
(unless the act of chewing is considered vulgar with its association with gum). is just being unnecessarily sarcastic and catty. Now, if it had been witty that would be a separate matter.
– Mari-Lou A
Dec 5 '18 at 11:30
