By Ian Doherty
Radical Candour is the art of challenging directly while caring personally. It’s not just about saying the hard thing, it’s about how you say it, and why. In his article, Ian Doherty outlines how candour can become part of an organisation’s culture by challenging with care.
Leadership today demands courage, not just in decision-making but in the conversations we have with those around us. Yet too often, senior leaders misinterpret what it means to be bold. We see directness without compassion. Feedback that stings but doesn’t serve.
Take Amazon CEO Andy Jassy’s internal memo earlier this year, a company-wide announcement on prioritising generative AI and scaling back corporate headcount. The message was clear and decisive. But the tone? Cold. Detached. What should have been a galvanising moment instead sparked disengagement and mistrust.
This is a classic example of the misapplication of radical candour.
Radical candour: what it is, and what it’s not
Coined by Kim Scott, Radical Candour is the art of challenging directly while caring personally. It’s not just about saying the hard thing, it’s about how you say it, and why.
Too many leaders lean into the challenge but forget the care, others, out of fear of mis stepping, avoid the challenge entirely. Either way, the result is the same, diluted conversations, disempowered teams, and a lack of progress.
As I often say, “Directness fuels fire, but if compassion disappears, the fire dies.” You need both to generate energy, momentum, and trust.
So how do we fix it?
1. Map your team’s communication dynamics
Understanding how your team prefers to give and receive feedback is step one. Not everyone thrives on blunt truth. Leaders who can flex their style without losing authenticity build deeper trust.
At Insights, we use colour energies to explore these preferences:
- Fiery Red: prefers direct, decisive action
- Sunshine Yellow: looks for energy and optimism
- Earth Green: values harmony and connection
- Cool Blue: seeks data, structure, and time to process
Each person is a unique blend of all four energies and that blend influences how they communicate, make decisions, and respond to challenge. Using tools like Insights Discovery, which many organisations use to develop self-awareness and team effectiveness, can help leaders recognise these dynamics and adapt their approach. It’s a practical way to ensure feedback lands with care, clarity, and real impact.
2. Create safe spaces for ‘challenge with care’
Feedback shouldn’t only happen when something goes wrong. If you want candour to become part of your culture, it needs to be normalised, not weaponised.
Regular check-ins and retrospectives are opportunities to build trust. When people know their voice is heard and respected, they’re more likely to respond with honesty and openness.
It also helps to be explicit. Leaders won’t always get it right, but labelling a conversation as a ‘challenge with care’ can shift the tone and intent. It signals that the feedback comes from a place of support, not judgement. That simple framing helps people lower their defences and engage with the message rather than the emotion behind it.
3. Use metaphor and mindful language to depersonalise feedback
One of the most effective ways to defuse defensiveness is to make feedback about the work, not the person. Metaphors can help.
Think of a team as a rowing crew, if one person is out of sync, the whole boat slows down. Framing feedback this way encourages collective accountability rather than blame.
Don’t forget that language really matters – you’re not labelling people, you’re highlighting patterns:
- “Why did you behave that way?”
- “My perception of your behaviour on that occasion was… can you help me understand why?”
The first is accusatory. The second invites dialogue. Leaders who adapt their language to individual preferences create stronger, safer feedback cultures.
4. Train for emotional agility, not just performance
Technical skills may get someone into leadership, but emotional agility sustains them. The best leaders I work with are present, self-aware, and responsive to tension. They don’t shy away from conflict, and they don’t escalate it unnecessarily.
This kind of leadership is essential in environments facing rapid change, hybrid working, or post-pandemic fatigue. We need leaders who can hold discomfort and still make people feel valued.
The bottom line: honest feedback builds stronger teams, when it starts with intention and humanity
Radical candour isn’t about being brutally honest. It’s about being bravely honest, with care. It starts with leaders modelling the behaviour they want to see.
That includes being willing to show vulnerability. It’s okay, even powerful for a leader to say, “I’m feeling uncomfortable about raising this.” It reminds others that feedback isn’t about hierarchy or perfection, it’s about growth, clarity, and trust.
And it’s not one-way. Creating a culture of candour also means being open to challenge yourself. The most effective leaders don’t just give feedback, they invite it. They treat disagreement as a source of insight, not a threat. That openness signals psychological safety and creates a shared responsibility for communication across the whole team.
So the next time you’re about to offer tough feedback, ask yourself:
- Am I saying this to help the person grow, or just to prove a point?
- Have I built enough trust for this message to land?
- Am I showing that I care, not just about the outcome, but about the individual?
- And am I just as willing to hear feedback as I am to give it?
When we balance challenge with compassion, and honesty with humility, we unlock something powerful. Teams that are more courageous, cultures that are more human, and organisations that are better equipped to thrive, even through change.
Ian Doherty
