The truth doesn’t always have to hurt.

A client said something to me the other day that made me smile. We’d had a very honest conversation where I had to be blunt and tell her that an action she had taken really wasn’t the right one. It’s rare I’ll do this because mostly I leave clients to do what they think is right, but this was an area I have particular expertise in, and I didn’t want her to continue down the wrong path.

She said she didn’t mind me ‘telling her off' her words, not mine, because she knew I’d been through it myself. She said she actually appreciated my bluntness and that I don’t circle around things but just say them how they are. She knew it was coming from experience, from lessons I’d learnt the hard way, and from a place of wanting to save her the time and pain of getting it wrong like I once did.

Then she laughed and said, ‘I know you’re not really telling me off, you’re just course-correcting me. But I also know that in the past I would have found this really hard to hear from someone else. From you, though, it always feels like a friend trying to protect me.’

I loved that, because it captured something I see again and again. The truth can feel awful and hurtful when it comes from someone who hasn’t stood where you’re standing, especially when the person giving it is also worrying about the conflict conversation and blurts out some feedback in an unkind manner. When it comes from someone who’s been there, and from a place of care and protection rather than criticism, it’s felt differently. It feels like kindness and care rather than an attack, rather like someone holding a torch a few steps ahead on a dark road, saying, 

‘Watch your footing, it’s rough here.’

For so many leaders, this is a turning point: when they realise that not only is giving direct feedback kind, but that it can be deeply caring and helpful. It can feel like support, like someone rooting for you and who might even have a plan to help you move forward. I always feel torn when I have to give direct feedback, and I weigh up carefully how much I get involved in suggesting a course of action.

However, it’s often the kindest thing someone can do for you: to risk your discomfort in anticipation of your growth. They want you to be better and can see that you can be; they ask you to be better because they want you to be more. Sometimes this is simply because they need you to do your job, role, or task better, and sometimes it’s about you as a human being. It should, in fact, be about both.

Because real care doesn’t always sound soft, it should sound empathetic. I was once described as ‘empathetically challenging’, and I think that sums me up in a great way.

How are you described?