A scene from “The Office”.
NBC television
If you’ve ever watched HBO’s “Silicon Valley” or NBC’s “The Office,” you’ve seen some examples of disgusting aggression and manipulative anxiety displayed by leaders.
Of course, real managers shouldn’t emulate Michael Scott or the command-and-control culture dramatized on TV. Instead, leaders should strive for a radically candid approach that Kim Scott, a former Apple and Google executive, describes as showing concern for individuals while openly challenging them.
The concept is simple, but Scott told CNBC senior media and technology reporter Julia Boorstin at the recent Disruptor 50 Connect event in San Francisco that it’s difficult to challenge your peers and show that you care at the same time. He said he considered it radical.
“You rarely do both at the same time, especially in workplace feedback, but real feedback happens in all areas of life,” Scott said. “It’s a question of existential fear.”
Avoid the fear of providing honest feedback
That fear prevents leaders from providing feedback that falls into the radical candor bucket and often veers toward the three types of negative feedback that Scott outlined in his book, Radical Candor. Unpleasant aggression, praise that doesn’t feel genuine, or feedback that isn’t delivered. Be kind; destructive empathy, or feedback that tries to save someone’s short-term feelings but doesn’t tell them what they need to know. or acts of manipulative dishonesty, betrayal, or passive-aggressiveness, which Scott says are the worst kinds of feedback failures.
Scott said the challenge for CEOs and leaders is balancing the desire to be “compassionately candid without being overly empathetic,” which can be done by asking for feedback. Told.
“At the heart of radical candor is good relationships between managers and employees, between colleagues, and up and down,” she said. “It’s about good relationships, and there are few things that destroy good relationships more than an imbalance of power. So if you have power, how do you put it, get feedback from people?” Learn how to ask for it, and learn how to prove it.”For them, telling you what they really think is not only safe, but rewarding. ”
Be tough but fair
Amid recent leadership scandals and broader societal changes, leaders may worry about upsetting employees when providing more firm feedback, but this may be due to poor communication skills. That’s no excuse, Scott said.
“What’s happening now is that people are suddenly aware of all the things they should have been aware of before, but weren’t, and they’ve retreated into a manipulative dishonesty that doesn’t consider them or challenge them.” said Scott. “They don’t say anything because they’re concerned about their reputation as a leader. I get this question a lot from CEOs. They say they don’t want to give feedback to certain people on their team. There is a problem with human resources.”
Scott said it takes leaders who are willing to “challenge more directly than they are comfortable with” while being aware of how what they say will land.
“Despite everything written on social media, most of us actually care about personal things, but we don’t want to offend, offend, or offend someone. We’re very worried that they won’t do it, and we’re not telling them what they should know,” she said.
