Defining Radical Candor – and How to Do It

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2020

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kim Scott, a cofounder of the executive coaching firm Radical Candor, says that too many managers give meaningless positive feedback, while many others are highly critical without showing any understanding. Scott, who previously worked at Google and has consulted for Twitter and Dropbox, says leaders should learn to give honest feedback in the moment, while also developing a relationship that shows how the hard feedback is coming from a place of caring. She explains the steps managers can take to challenge more directly while also communicating empathy. Scott is the author of the book "Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity."

Transcript

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0:00.0	Kurt Nick is here from Ideacast. I want to tell you about the Big Take
0:05.1	podcast from Bloomberg News. Each weekday they bring you one important story
0:10.0	from their global newsroom like how AI will upend your life and why China's
0:15.4	targeting the US dollar. Check out the big take from Bloomberg wherever you listen. Welcome to the HBR Ideacast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Kurt Nickish. Who is the ideal boss? Some people strive to be the leader with the iron fist, take no prisoners, hold
0:55.8	up a high bar, if workers can't hack it, well it's just not a good fit. Or maybe you tend the other
1:02.4	direction, you lead with love, nurture your team, make sure people
1:06.3	feel fulfilled and taken care of, maybe even to a fault, even when they don't deserve it.
1:11.6	Today's guest wants managers to be both demanding and compassionate.
1:16.7	They should care personally and challenge directly.
1:20.3	She believes that effective leaders can balance constructive feedback and compassion in a way that helps workers improve and organizations succeed.
1:28.0	Our guest is Kim Scott, she's the co-founder of the executive education firm Radical Candor and she's coached CEOs at Dropbox Twitter and others and she's the author of the book Radical Candor be a kick-ass boss without losing your humanity. Kim, thanks for joining us.
1:44.1	Great to be here.
1:45.1	Now you spent a good deal of your career in tech startups.
1:51.2	You worked early on at Google where you know Cheryl Sandberg was your
1:54.4	boss. You probably had a lot of bosses over that time. You were also one yourself.
2:00.3	When did you realize that most bosses were kind of in one camp or the other?
2:06.2	You know it's interesting I have found in my career as a boss but also with my bosses that
2:11.6	it's not that people are in one camp or another we often
2:14.8	bounce between all of the camps on often on a daily basis so let me explain for a
2:21.5	minute what I mean by radical candor.
2:23.4	It's caring personally challenging directly.
2:26.0	Now when you remember to challenge directly,
	...

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