No doubt you heard the advice as you grew up: “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say any anything at all.” Many people still operate according to that rule even when in a position of leading or directing people. While this advice may work for everyday life, it can be a disaster when adopted by managers. On the other hand, there are some people who, when they have achieved a management position, believe it is their responsibility or privilege to boss people around, demanding that their voice is the only one that matters. This attitude can also be disastrous for a manager. The book “Radical Candor” by Kim Scott proposes a model of leadership based on the idea that the best boss is the one that can “care personally and challenge directly.” When a leader can effectively combine these two skills, they are most effective at influencing, inspiring, developing, and directing their team. Only when we clearly show that we care personally can people accept our effort to challenge directly. And only when we challenge directly are people convinced that we truly do care personally.

My view is that leadership is the ability to influence built upon a relationship of trust and respect. This correlates with the concept of Radical Candor. Trust is built by caring personally. Respect is built by challenging directly.

This combination of caring personally and challenging directly is a balancing process and is modulated by our understanding of the recipient and the way in which they perceive both the caring and the challenging. Challenging, or guidance, is always meant to impact the future of recipient; therefore, it includes both praise and criticism.

When our ability to care personally and to challenge directly is out of balance, the ability to lead can be impacted adversely. Ms. Scott describes the various combinations of caring and challenging as follows:

Obnoxious Aggression is when a boss is prone to criticize without showing that they care about the recipient. The boss comes off as a “jerk” and the recipient is made to feel incompetent.

Ruinous Empathy is when a boss cares so much that they are unable to ever challenge; this is the “when you can’t say anything nice” person in action. It is ruinous because the recipient never is given feedback that will lead to growth.

Manipulative Insincerity is the result of a boss that doesn’t care enough to challenge. The worst version of leadership, this is generally the result of a boss that is only focused on him- or herself. It’s praise that is false or condescending and criticism that is neither clear nor kind.

Radical Candor is the healthy mix of caring and challenging that leads to growth and influence.

The first portion of the book defines and explains Radical Candor, building the case for why it is the best model for today’s leadership in the workplace. In fact, Radical Candor is a concept useful in any relationship or communication. In the process of describing Radical Candor, Ms. Scott further defines caring as understanding what motivates each person on the team through a process of exploration and communication. She also describes the open communication and guidance that embodies challenging directly.

The second half of the book is devoted to demonstrating what Radical Candor looks like in action, presenting advice and tools for the day-to-day practice of leading a team in a Radical Candor fashion. This includes advice on building relationships in the workplace, getting and giving guidance, building and motivating a team, and on getting stuff done, as she describes it. In the chapter on results, the book contains a GSD or Getting Stuff Done model, in which Ms. Scott describes the various types of meetings that she believes a team should utilize and the general steps for accomplishing projects. These steps are: Listen, Clarify, Debate, Decide, Persuade, Execute, Learn, and back to Listen. The advice regarding giving guidance gives some helpful advice on hiring, firing, promotions, and performance reviews. In summary, the Radical Candor model should become a philosophy of interacting with people on our team.

While this book spends considerable describing the actions or skills that result from a Radical Candor style of leadership, for many people the concept of Radical Candor is as much an urging to character growth as it is a recipe for competency. Radical Candor requires a development of relationships that may be a challenge to many people. Yet I believe that effective leadership is built upon such relationships.

I highly recommend this book and the character growth that is required to embrace and live in a Radical Candor fashion.

Are you ready to care personally and to challenge directly as you lead people? What growth do you need to undertake in order to do so effectively?