Manager #1: “I want my managers to think more like owners. And frankly, I know a number of them won’t like the message, but they need to hear it.”
Manager #2; “Yes, I agree 100%. Plus I’d also like the day to be a morale booster… how can we deliver that message and then ensure we still end on a positive note?”
Manager #1, nice. Manager #2, I have seen your destiny, and it is failure. Sweet, spectacular failure.
There is a difference between having good bedside manner and pandering. In the first case, you empathize and then hold firm in asking the person in your charge to do what you believe to be good for him. In the latter case, you are so afraid that he might punish you for making him do something he doesn’t like that you abdicate your responsibility for his well-being. In the example above, Manager #1 is not out of the woods—she still needs to focus on execution and bedside manner—but Manager #2 is just plain up a creek. Putting more interest in user feedback than the content of the message means she’s inverted her priorities; she’s pandering.
When leaders are competent and hold firm to competent views, the process of staking a claim and holding firm to it naturally fosters trust and loyalty.
Why does this work? Because followers are not stupid, that’s why.
I didn’t like eating vegetables any more than the next kid while growing up, but you know, I started to realize that my energy was lower and I didn’t feel as healthy when they weren’t a regular part of my diet. And with that discovery came the realization that my parents weren’t masochists. They understood how I felt, and they cared enough about my well being to push me to confront my distaste for asparagus. I didn’t always like them for that, but I did appreciate them on a deeper level. In fact, I developed a sense of respect and loyalty for them as a result.
What an unbelievable insight: honest dealings resulted in a positive, well-formed relationship.
Crazy.
You know what else my parents did? They kept up the honesty as I got older. They never told me that spinach would taste like Lik-m-aid, they never told me shots would feel good, and they never promised me life would be fair—even if it seemed it should be.
I have friends who went off the deep end in college, for no other reason than their parents had lied to them. (It’s amazing, how if you tell someone that drinking will kill them, and then they see someone get drunk and not die, how little credibility you have with them after that.) Today, I work with companies who employees are seemingly off the deep end at times.
Blame it on generational shifts all you want, but when managers continually sugar coat tough, honest messages, it’s no wonder they can’t get loyalty, can’t get hard work, and can’t get trust.
Spinach does not taste like flavored sugar. Stop trying to tell your employees that it does—pandering does not work. Your employees are no more stupid about the difference than you were when you were in their position.
Some managers fear subordinates will turn on their heels when you tell them the truth. To them I say, “They likely won’t. And if they do? Good riddance, don’t get in the way of them and the door.”
Other managers sugar coat the truth because they simply don’t know what else to do—they feel trapped by all the forms they need to fill out and don’t know how to be human and check boxes at the same time. To them I say, “When imaging the feedback conversation, picture the next conversation after that. See yourself running into someone in the hallway, and having them smile at you. Why are they smiling, because you coddled them and told them sweet little lies? No. They are smiling because they’re thinking, ‘Hey, you had the courage to tell me the truth, even though you knew I wouldn’t like it. You treated me like a grown up. That’s special. I like you.’ Picture that, and the right words will come. Maybe not the first few times, but they’ll come.”
And remember, when you have the courage to face the truth, others will draw courage from you.
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I'm Jason. I make people shine. My mission is to help 1 million people tell their stories better. 
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Great post today, Jason. And thanks so much for your VM. How funny that you were reading Cosmo. I forgot why you said you were, but it’s amusing regardless. Hope we get a chance to hang out soon.
@Alexandra, thank you for sharing my magazine reading habits with the world. I was actually learning about… never mind. Nice article, though!