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Radical Candor in Leadership—How to Use it Without Sounding Like a Jerk

Employees’ perception of leadership is directly tied to their outcomes and performance, yet only 22 percent say they trust their organizational leadership. Radical candor is a tool more business leaders use to establish meaningful, trustworthy relationships with their teams. When implemented correctly, radical candor can help you communicate helpful feedback with an appropriate level of care that sets employees up for success.

This article will detail the importance of radical candor in the workplace and the meaningful ways leadership can implement it for radical change.

What Is the Purpose of Radical Candor in the Workplace?

When many people hear the term “radical candor,” their mind goes to “brutal honesty.” In reality, radical candor is a conduit for “challenging directly” and “caring personally,” according to author Kim Scott. When leadership cares about the individual they’re sharing feedback with and are mindful about how they’re conducting the interaction, it changes the conversation from brutal honesty to radical candor.

Radical candor involves communicating honestly so the individual can grow and learn while also trusting that you care about them. When trust is established between individuals, receiving the praise or constructive criticism that comes with radical candor is easier. So, in essence, radical candor aims to build trust between business leaders and their teams.

What Radical Candor Is

Radical candor can look different depending on the circumstances. It helps if business leaders think of it through the acronym HIP. According to Scott, when radical candor is HIP, it strikes a balance between candid and sincere. The HIP approach is:

  • Humble
  • Helpful
  • Immediate
  • In Person
  • Private Criticism
  • Public Praise
  • Not About Personality

Radical candor takes place at the intersection of caring personally and challenging directly. When radical candor is shared using the HIP approach, it is kind and helpful for the person receiving it.

What Radical Candor Is Not

When radical candor is oversaturated with empathy, aggression, or insincerity, it can teeter past radical candor and cause trust to be lost between leadership and employees. The opposites of radical candor are:

  • Ruinous empathy: Having nice intentions that are ultimately unhelpful or even damaging. An example would be not telling a team member they have food in their teeth ahead of a meeting. Your intention was to preserve their feelings, but it may have unintentionally embarrassed them when they spoke in front of others.
  • Obnoxious aggression: This feedback may be helpful, even necessary, but it’s delivered without care. This can be referred to as “front stabbing.” A prime example would be asking a team member to wear more office-appropriate attire but mentioning it mockingly in front of their peers.
  • Manipulative insecurity: This is what most people would refer to as being stabbed in the back. This feedback is neither helpful nor delivered with care. An example may be a boss who is upset with an employee’s performance and talks about it amongst the rest of the team, letting information trickle through back channels to the individual.

How to Practice Radical Candor Without Sounding Like a Jerk

Understanding radical candor is the first part of the equation. What are practical ways leadership can implement radical candor in everyday occurrences without losing the trust of their team?

Get It Before You Dish It

The best way to make others more receptive and open to feedback is to open the door for receiving it yourself. Business leaders are encouraged to create two-way channels for radical candor in the following ways:

  • Sharing your stories: Share the times you received candor from leaders in the past and how you leveraged that feedback. Did you experience a challenging interaction with a client? Have you struggled to get on the same page as other internal teams? Share those humanizing stories.
  • Solicit feedback: Business leaders should start asking their teams for constructive criticism. Asking for guidance demonstrates to employees that leadership can take it before they start dishing it.
  • Persistence: Show employees that your quest for candor is genuine by being persistent. Try different approaches to asking for criticism or feedback, such as one-on-one scenarios or in groups and in various settings, so your teams feel comfortable providing radical candor.
  • Rewarding other’s candor: Show employees that you value their candor by vocalizing your appreciation, not getting defensive, and rewarding the action. This can be done by showing the employee that their candor made an impact.


Think Before You Speak

Before offering radical candor to an employee, pause and be mindful of the information and its impact.

Consider what you want to say and why you need to deliver the feedback. You may deem this information as necessary, but how will you communicate so the employee finds value also? How can you frame what you want to say in a clear and concise way?

Focus on an Individual’s Behavior, Not Personality

Radical candor should focus on issues the employee can reasonably control. The CORE method was developed to help leaders implement radical candor effectively. CORE consists of:

  • Context—Cite the situation
  • Observe—Describe what was done or said
  • Result—Share the results or meaningful consequences
  • Next Steps—Review the intended next steps

When put together, this can look something like: “Hey Brad. In our client meeting this morning (context), I noticed you pausing and responding frequently with ‘um’ (observation). It would help the client feel better if we were more prepared for their questions and came ready with our responses (result). Let’s schedule time 15 minutes before our future client meetings to review the agenda and prepare how to deliver and respond to the client (nExt stEps).”

Conduct Growth Management Conversation

To implement radical candor, it helps to understand what motivates each team member and how their job fits into their long-term goals. One key way to practice radical candor is to conduct career conversations with team members first. Learn about their life story, what they value, and what drives them to succeed. Ask about their dreams and the goals that they’re working for. And finally, help them craft career action plans around those goals.

Knowing this information can help business leaders provide candor that is targeted and helps push employees toward their long-term career goals.

Perfect 1:1 Conversations by Continuing to Have Them Regularly

Career conversations are not a one-and-done approach. Continuing to have meaningful 1:1 conversations between business leaders and their direct employees ensures that transparency and trust are built and reinforced over time. It also keeps leaders abreast of any changes to an employee’s goals or aspirations.

Take Time to Reflect

What worked? How would you approach the situation differently next time? Radical candor is something business leaders should always be in pursuit of, and it’s okay to trial and error before landing on your methods. Leadership is encouraged to take time to assess their approaches and fine-tune them as teams evolve retroactively.


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Radical Candor Can Create Radical Change

Radical candor is not suited for all situations, but creating and maintaining healthy two-way communication between business leaders and their teams is necessary. Understanding what radical candor is and is not is hugely important for leveraging it in helpful ways.