Coach Yourself!

11Compassionate Candor Framework

Honesty is love.

—Arthur C. Brooks

I want us to reframe feedback into compassionate candor. If someone's actions are successful, as a boss, you should reinforce them. And if someone's actions are problematic, you should let them know, and support them to improve. Candor should be built on compassion. I see it as an act of love, actually.

Bosses are uncomfortable delivering feedback for the most part, so they avoid doing it. This makes sense: our brains are programmed to avoid conflict unless it's a direct threat to our safety. If we are feeling safe and working productively, why introduce tension and possible conflict?¹ And yet, as bosses, we should not shy away from feedback.

My framework owes a lot to the research and strategies outlined by Kim Scott in her book Radical Candor.² She opened up the conversation about feedback to show that we can bring a more human‐centric philosophy to the topic without losing sight of business realities.

Compassionate Candor: Two Key Dimensions

We all know a boss who is too direct and rubs us the wrong way. We also all know a boss who is too conflict‐avoidant to give us the feedback that we want or need. Compassionate candor shows us how we can combine these two dimensions into a winning approach for delivering and receiving feedback.

Compassionate

You need a trusting, compassionate relationship with the people who work for you to deliver feedback that lands. I emphasize three keys on how to build a compassionate ...