Thursday's Leadership Insight, A Balance of Care and Candor Drives Effective Leadership and High-Performance Organizations.

Leadership is an often misunderstood concept. Kouszes and Posner have written about leadership myths in The Leadership Challenge. Care and candor are leadership content skills often misunderstood and misused by leaders. When understood and intentionally practiced in a balanced tandem, care and candor will enhance leadership and organizational performance. This Thursday's leadership Insight describes how a balance of care and candor in one's leadership practice can lead to practical, productive discussions and enhance learning and collaborations to benefit the person and organization. First, we will define care and candor. Three misconceptions about care and candor will be described, and seven checkpoints will guide leaders in balancing care and candor in daily leadership practice.

?What do the terms care and candor mean? Care is defined in several conflicting ways, from showing concern for self and others in feeling and especially in action. In a 2021 Forbes article How Leaders Can Truly Show They Care, Shane Green Green described care as action to demonstrate care by leaders in his opening paragraph. He writes that care for leaders. "The old saying "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care" should be a leadership mantra. If you want to ?inspire the hearts and minds of your people, then you must demonstrate care and respect for your employees as individuals." On the other hand, Candor is defined as being honest, straightforward in attitude and speech, and fair. These definitions illuminate how a balance of care and candor can be decisive leadership actions.

Care and candor are powerful actions when combined in a balanced practice. Three misconceptions about candor and care often hinder the practice.

Misconception #1. Caring means leaders must always act nice and friendly or avoid issues requiring candor. This is considered a weakness or avoidance of discomfort.

Being nice means leaders avoid challenging discussions. Very few leaders like to have difficult conversations with Individuals who are not behaving, not performing, making mistakes, or even sharing awful news within the organization. Effective leadership often requires challenging discussions with individuals, ?teams, or the entire organization. Leaders often have to provide and receive difficult feedback. For many leaders, this isn't easy due to our upbringing and desire to be popular. Think back to your childhood. Does this teaching resonate with you "If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything," or "Ignore it, and it will correct itself?" While I believe the intent may have been to be kind, this is not a guide for building lasting sustainable relationships and effective leadership practice.

Human relationships are complicated and can involve conflict and uncomfortable discussions. The unspoken message, then, is avoidance. Marlene Chism in?From Conflict to Courage?reports most conflicts in organizations are due to avoidance because of leadership mismanagement. This avoidance is then cloaked in "niceness" or" ignoring. During my tenure as a high school administrator, I often discussed with teachers who felt ignoring behavior in the classroom extinguished it. It was uncomfortable, and the teacher avoided it, hoping for the best. In my 50 years as an educator, I have never seen this as effective classroom management. I have seen this avoidance because of discomfort with supervising in all organizational settings as a?coach. Being friendly and avoiding issues leads to more significant issues, more challenging situations, and often damaged relationships. The effective leader doesn't relish difficult discussions yet understands, as a 1970s ad used to say, "You can pay me now or pay me later."The act in care with candor to address uncomfortable interactions. The leader's intentionally balanced use of candor and care allows the leader to have a different perspective to make these individual and group discussions less uncomfortable, treating people with respect and more productive.

Misconception #2. Candor means a leader has a right or permission to be insensitive, cruel, or demeaning.

The misconception is that being "candid "makes a leader look strong. Leaders who act this way feels they must demonstrate their power over others by being callous, cruel, and vindictive. We have all seen a media interviewer be personally insulting to the person they are interviewing, claiming they were being candid. They disagreed with the other person's position and attacked them personally. You may have experienced a harsh personal rebuke from a supervisor, starting with "to be candid."The intent of both examples had nothing to do with candor or care. They had much to do with being powerful or one-upping someone".

Misconception # 3 is that candor and care are characterized as strategies reserved only for specific situations.

The use of care and candor is used as a tool to apply to particular situations?like celebrations and crises or only when things "hit the fan."The truth is that care and candor are essential daily parts of all leadership in all situations. Care and candor may be more visible in a challenging situation; Effective leaders understand the balanced use of care, and candor is needed daily in any context.

"Caring values the person while candor values the person's potential, and both factors play into effective leadership candor."

???????????????????????????????????????John Maxwell

Leaders in their practice are driven by two principles: building people up and getting things done. Both must intentionally be practiced for the leader to be effective and for the organization to achieve high-performance results. In a September 2022 Forbes article, Direct Leaders Are Faster, Smarter, and Better by Rasmus Hougaard, the balance of care and candor is described. He writes, "Care and candor are two necessary traits of a successful leader – care for employees within and beyond the boundaries of office walls and candor to deliver important messages with honesty. When used in tandem, leaders can communicate efficiently and effectively with the highest degree of consideration for their people." He also writes, "Caring candor is about showing our people and team the opportunities for improvement thoughtfully and respectfully." Leadership expert John C. Maxwell often writes about the balance of care and candor in For Leaders: balancing care with candor that "Caring Should Never Suppress Candor While Candor Should Never Displace Caring'.The bottom line, which has already become very clear, is that good leaders must embrace both care and candor. You can't ignore either."

"Care without candor creates dysfunctional relationships.

Candor without care creates distant relationships.

But care balanced with candor creates developing relationships."

??John Maxwell

The intent is the difference between how care and candor are described in the three misconceptions, and effective leadership is based on the leader's intent. Kim Scott, in her 2019?book?Radical Candor — The Surprising Secret to Being a Good Boss,?describes how care ?and candor are vital to organizations and defines it as "Radical candor, a combination of caring personally and challenging directly." Leadership expert John Maxwell echoed these same thoughts In a?December 20, 2010 blog,?For leaders: balancing care with Candor,?noting that "Caring values the person while candor values the person's potential, and both factors play into effective leadership candor. To lead successfully, you need to value people. That is foundational to solid relationships. Caring for others demonstrates that you value them. However, to help them improve, you have to be honest about where they need to improve.?That shows that you value the person's potential and require candor." Candor is an intent to be completely honest with a belief in the person's ability to improve and a desire to care enough to guide them in improvement.

Maxwell leadership Corporate Solutions Podcasters Perry Holly and Chris Goede, in an August 2019 podcast?EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP PODCAST #149: LEADER SKILL: HOW TO DELIVER THE KIND-HARD TRUTH?.provided seven checkpoints for a leader to deliver the "kind hard truth."The checklist below guides how to use care and candor in challenging discussions with individuals, teams, or the entire organization.

Checkpoint One; Check the strength of your connection; it is the foundation of the balance of care and candor.

A leader's connection with a person allows them to be honest and transparent as someone who wants to help the person develop and learn.

??Checkpoint two. Check your intent versus your perception

The leader's clarity on their intent to improve their connection and guide the person (s) to improve their performance first versus your perception of what you saw or disappointment and even anger about the mistake

Checkpoint Three. Check that the what of the situation is more important than the who.

Do your best to separate the action you want to be corrected or learned from the person(s) value as a human being and team member. People make mistakes. What happened is not a moral judgment in the vast majority of cases.

?Checkpoint Four. Check that your language, demeanor, and tone demonstrate your care to preserve the person's dignity and avoid guilt, blame, or shame.

How you communicate a message is more than the words used .your relationships will be enhanced or destroyed by your eye contact, body language, tone, and listening. Be a learner, not a blamer. Most challenges carry lessons for leaders and those they lead to learning.

Checkpoint Five Check your communication style for effectiveness.

?A leader who is attentive and intentional in using their best communication will build connections and create avenues for people to learn. This means using a strategy of seeking first to understand and then to be understood. A mindset of curiosity will gain the most information and enhance learning. Being transparent and direct in communication, using open-ended questions, maintaining eye contact, using an open posture, and using present listening will help understand how the situation unfolded. These communication skills, used with a balance of care and candor, will provide further guidance and coaching.

Checkpoint Six?Check your intention to do the right thing versus a desire to be correct and win a disagreement.

This checkpoint reminds a leader t that their primary roles are building people up and getting things done. Balanced with care, Candor guides people to get better and learn ways to get things done well.

Checkpoint Seven Check back with the person or persons involved in the discussion for clarity, impact, learning, and mutual understanding.

Asking the individual for a summary creates mutual understanding and affirms the person's dignity and plan for remedying the situation. Mutual understanding and immediate clarification can reduce the possibility of misunderstanding and repeated errors. A mutual summation and clarification affirms commitment to action and demonstrates care balanced with candor. Having an expressed mutual summation of the situation reaffirms the leader's commitment to addressing that situation, not assigning blame or shame, and demonstrates caring for the person.

Candor and caring may be more visible in a challenging situation, yet it is a daily practice for effective leadership in any context.

The leadership practice of candor and caring is best displayed in the message and its delivery. Care and Candor are more than a correction strategy. Care and candor develop a transparent two-way process of getting and delivering feedback to help all grow relationships, connect, and maximize performance. A leadership practice of candor balanced with care provides several benefits for the organizational culture by fostering ;

1.??A culture that is safe to challenge?each other not to be right or to curry favor but to be agile and question the status quo

2.??A culture that encourages and respects a variety of thoughts increases learning

3.??A culture encourages?collaboration and bringing?our best selves to the table

4.??Quicker solutions or course corrections?to mistakes?because people feel empowered to open all outcomes, positive and negative

5.??A connected, caring work environment people want to stay in and add to.

The balanced use of care and candor in leadership in any relationship is like riding a tandem bike. The bike moves forward fast when both care and candor riders are peddling together. The two riders are peddling in the same way and direction. Interestingly if either rider gets out of sync, bad things will occur.

Leadership practices that embrace a balance of caring and candor will make the challenging discussions that are always part of leadership more effective for the leader, the receiver, and the organization in the long run. To take it a step further, remember that life is relationships. The intentional use of care and candor can enhance all organizations. Work, school, church, and home all have people who deserve to be led well and to be built up and things to get done. The balance of care and candor will make the ride smoother, easier, and more productive.

The leadership questions for you then ;

1.??How would you rate your use of care and candor in your leadership practice?

2.?Which of the checkpoints can you improve on?