dailyBooks - Radical Candor--Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott | Conversation Starters

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Introducing Radical Candor

F ormer Apple and Google executive Kim Scott is the author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling book Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity. When youre eighteen and you have your first job, one of the first messages you receive in the workplace is Be professional. This translates to: check your emotions. According to Scott, this message sticks with people as they start working and move up the ladder into leadership positions. She says that the results of this management style is ineffective.

She says that there are four leadership styles. Three are ineffective, only one is ideal. These leadership styles are behaviors, not a trait, so anyone can develop it no matter the personality.

She demonstrated these leadership styles through a graph that has two axes, one is Care Personally and the other, Challenge Directly .

She says that when a boss challenges directly but fails to show personal care to the people he manages, it results to the leadership style Obnoxious Aggression . This happens when the employees feels belittled by their boss. The boss publicly embarrasses them and freezes them out. Bosses who exhibit Obnoxious Aggression as their leadership style produce great results but in the process they suck the life out of their team. Scott recalls the movie The Devil Wears Prada and says that Meryl Streeps character Miranda Priestly is an example of the Obnoxious Aggression leadership style.

Scott says another message we often get in the workplace is Dont say anything mean. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." This is where the next leadership style stems from. This leadership style is called Ruinous Empathy . These are the bosses that show personal care to their employees but fails to challenge them directly. According to Scott, managers often commit this mistake. Most managers are afraid to challenge their employees directly in the fear of hurting their feelings. She says that its a grave mistake if the boss would not give a heads-up for an employee who is screwing up. Contrary to popular belief, Scott says that telling somebody theyre making mistakes or screwing up is actually an act of kindness. Saying nothing when somebody is doing something wrong is not kindness at all.

The third ineffective leadership style according to Scott is Manipulative Insincerity . Scott says that this is the worst square in the leadership style graph in her book. She says that this style is characterized by failing to challenge directly and failing to care personally. These are the bosses who give insincere praise and criticism. Their focus is being liked or thought well of. They could gain a political advantage in the corporate world by being fake. These bosses could also be just too tired to argue or care for his people.

The last of the leadership styles Kim Scott explained in her book is the ideal leadership style. She called it Radical Candor . This is the rare type of boss who challenges directly and also cares personally. Scott encourages the bosses to start radical candor by giving feedback to your team and getting feedback from your team. Scott does not advocate the famous feedback sandwich. This is when a boss praises the employee then criticizes him afterwards and then ends with another praise. She says that it is a good idea to praise more rather than criticize. She offers a better way. She encourages the bosses to be humble towards his employees. A boss who displays radical candor offers guidance to the person and is helpful when he is needed. This boss challenges and criticizes his employee directly but does not embarrass him. All criticisms are done privately. When he praises his employees, he does so in public. He builds the morale and esteem of his team and he does not personalize.

Scott says that the best way to explain mistakes to an employee is through telling him that his mistake is not because of his personality flaw. The boss should communicate that everything can be learned and that the employee can grow from this. The boss should be ready to share stories of his own experience of being criticized. This communicates to the employee that he is not alone and he can fix the mistakes he has done. Clear language is everything.

Scott says that these leadership styles arent dependent on the bosss personality. She says that this framework is a personal evaluation that a boss can use to regularly check on himself and measure progress with.

The Happiness Project author Gretchen Rubin says that Radical Candor is indispensable. New York Times bestselling author of Lean In helps bosses and managers to build, lead, and inspire teams to do the best work of their lives.

Introducing the Author