In order to speak, the superior must have the gift of humble authority, and the inferior must possess free humility. But people often confuse this order of things.
Sometimes a person swollen with pride speaks, and thinks that he is speaking with the authority of freedom, while another remains silent through foolish temerity, believing his silence is due to humility.
The person who looks on those who are subject to him, with no thought for the One upon whom they all depend, swells up with pride and boasts about it as if it were authority. The person who is afraid to lose favour with his superior and undergo some temporal harm, hides his thoughts and tacitly calls the fear that grips him, humility. By silencing his heart however, he judges the person that he does not want to speak with, and thinks himself humble, while he is disastrously proud.
We must always distinguish freedom from pride, humility from timidity, so that we do not confuse humility with timidity or freedom with pride.
Saint Gregory the Great
Homily on Ezekeil I
IX 1, 9; 12, 13