“Clear is Kind, Unclear is Unkind”

“Clear is Kind, Unclear is Unkind” is something that resonates with me, and gives me courage in tough situations.  My natural instinct is to want people to like me, to keep the peace and smooth things over.  I’m not sure why, as I’m fortunate I didn’t have a difficult background where I had to dodge barbed comments and deal with volatility in my parents, even if as the oldest of four we had some lively moments together!  As a teacher I recognise that one of the key pillars of teacher training is ‘behaviour management’, in which we are taught how to avoid and manage conflict in our classrooms.  Poor behaviour management means poor learning, and our young people only get one opportunity at that lesson, that year in their lives.

It perhaps shouldn’t be strange that most teachers I know are HUNGRY to learn techniques to deliver feedback effectively with their peers when they move into middle and senior leadership positions – it is much easier to do with our pupils than our peers!  These skills are also sought after in most other industries I’ve worked in.  Games companies pride themselves on their flat leadership models, like challenging the status quo of traditional hierarchical structures, and can therefore find it difficult to know how to manage being an admirable leader while giving feedback where change is required.  This boils down to us being worried about our self-perception – we’re understandably worried about the reaction of the other person of course, but mostly we’re worried that our carefully crafted concept of ourself as a ‘good person’ will be destroyed.

And so this is where Brené’s mantra gives me courage. If I’m clear with the message I’m landing, (rather than fudging the issue, talking so much I hide the message, and all those other avoidance tricks I’ve tried over the years without realising that was what I was doing) then I am being truly kind - there is an opportunity for someone who may be completely oblivious to the impact of what they are doing to make a simple change - and huge apologies to those who didn’t get the clarity they deserved from me.  So, if we’ve tried our best to be kindly clear we can definitely live with ourselves, and maintain our carefully crafted construct of being a good person.  In fact if we don’t land the message clearly, we aren’t being kind.  During these current times we need the courage Brené’s mantra can give us to keep moving forwards.

Reflections:

When have leaders you have known been clear and kind?

What gives you courage to have the conversations you need to have, but would prefer not to?