Is the kindest thing you're doing backfiring?

"If I'm direct with them, then they'll quit."

That was the sentence my client landed on when I asked her to name the story running underneath how she coaches and gives feedback to her team. She leads a lean team of high performers in a rapidly growing company, and she recently took on a newer employee who is a bit greener than the rest. 

Because of this, she notices that she softens and dances around feedback.

As an Enneagram 7, she admitted that she likes to keep the conversations positive and hopes the message gets through on its own in an attempt to keep good energy.

No matter your personality type, do you find yourself dancing around direct feedback, too? 

All of this is from a well-intended from a seasoned leader, however, here is what she noticed was actually happening over time with her team: When she holds feedback back, her employee can sense it, and because it never arrives clearly, she spins. Her employee gets ambiguous or confusing instructions, or none at all, and works with a sense of fear and caution.

My client's kindness, the thing she thought was protecting her employee, was quietly creating more fear than the feedback ever would have.

I asked her where that story around direct feedback  came from. She couldn't fully trace it, but she's worked for direct leaders she loved and trusted, the kind who would tell you when you had lettuce in your teeth because they cared about you. She's also worked for a CEO whose directness feels like someone hunting for a problem that wasn't there. So somewhere along the way her brain chose to wire directness with fear and unkindness.

A little mental flexibility trick I use with my clients (scroll down to see more of this tip!) when they have stories or thoughts no longer serving them is the find evidence of the opposite of that thought. What my client came up with for this is:

"If I'm direct, they'll thrive."

As she sat with this, she realized that she'd be happier because she'd finally say the things sitting on her chest instead of internalizing all of them. She'd be in her own integrity.

In fact, the leader she felt most successful under was the one she could be completely honest with, because that relationship had enough trust to hold directness. The employee she's closest with is the one she can be most direct with, and that person receives it beautifully.

Directness, received inside trust, is the exact thing that made her more effective.

The research backs her up. In a Zenger Folkman study of over 2,500 people, 57% said they preferred corrective feedback while only 43% preferred praise, and a full 72% believed their performance would improve if their managers gave them more corrective feedback. When that same research was published in Harvard Business Review, 92% of respondents agreed that negative feedback, when delivered well, improves performance. 

What I've learned in the decades of working with teams and coaching hundreds of people is that they are hungry to know where they stand, even if it's hard news.

Remember that avoiding someone's hard emotions and dancing around an issue is a form of manipulation. When you soften and hedge and stay artificially positive, you are managing their feelings for them. The harder emotions to feel like sadness, anger, disappointment, and frustration are usually the birthplace of necessary change in our lives. At least they have been for me.

The most generous thing you can do is be positive and direct. Kind and direct. You can be both. You do not have to choose between being warm and being clear. You get to be both.

🔥 Where in your leadership are you softening the message because you're afraid of what the other person will feel? What story are you telling yourself about what your directness will cost? And is that story actually true?

PUT THIS IDEA INTO ACTION

Want to shift your relationship with directness? Or shift a story that's no longer serving you? Here's the tool I walk my clients through: 

1: Name the story out loud. 

• For example, finish this sentence honestly:

• "If I'm direct, ______." Whatever comes up, that's the belief steering your behavior. You can't work with a story you won't say.

2: Ask if you can absolutely know it's true. 

Most of the time the answer is no. My client's own example proved it. The people she's most direct with are the ones who thrive under her.

3: Find the opposite and hunt for evidence. 

• Try on "If I'm direct, they'll thrive."

• Then go find the moments in your own life where that was true.

• Where has someone's honesty made you feel covered, trusted, and successful? That's your proof.

4: Remember what your silence is really doing. 

• When you hold back feedback to protect someone, they often feel the gap and fill it with something far less productive than the truth.

• Clarity is a kindness because silence makes them guess.

5: Lead from your values, in every conversation. 

• For example, my client's values are independence, generosity, and positivity. She was treating directness as the enemy of those values when it wasn't.

• She can be direct and generous. Direct and positive. Direct and fostering independent problem solving.

TRY THIS NEXT: 

Think of one conversation you've been softening or avoiding this week. Before you have it, get clear on your values and remind yourself that being direct is how you let this person thrive, not how you lose them. Then have the conversation. Notice what actually happens versus what your story told you would happen.

Kelli Thompson is an award-winning author, keynote speaker, and executive coach who specializes in helping women advance to the rooms where decisions are made (or build her own room). She is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Closing The Confidence Gap: Boost Your Peace, Your Potential & Your Paycheck

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