Book Review – Radical Candor: How To Get What You Want by Saying What You Mean by Kim Scott

By Bennet Owuonda, CHIEF

Being a boss is a much more complex and humane concept than Urban Dictionary makes it sound. It involves a lot of honesty, openness, intentional caring, mentoring, guiding, and motivating. It takes much more than a degree from business school, but an actual decision to be a better person and an even better “manager.”

Radical candor is a technique that allows you to combine the most effective methods of communication with the employees to make your work environment more positive and growth–encouraging. Your workers have different backgrounds and experiences, requiring you to find a unique approach to each of them. Be a person who is sincerely concerned about a worker’s performance, satisfaction with their job, and their opinions on different topics. Make sure that you know whether your employees are stressed or not because emotional tension negatively affects everyone’s performance.

It is difficult to maintain professionalism when filled with negative feelings. So, you should set up regular meetings where you can talk face to face with every person to know how your workers feel. Allow an employee to feel safe with you, and they will open up. The work environment will become a place where the workers have a chance to be themselves as in real life.

However, don’t forget about yourself while taking care of others. You don’t want to experience emotional exhaustion caused by neglect of your needs. Always take some time during the day to think about yourself. Concentrate on your sensations — do you feel tense, frustrated, happy, irritated, inspired? Try to find out the reasons for these emotions because it will help you handle the situations better in the future.

Try this

The next time you are having issues with a member of your team, remember that different types of motivation work for different workers. Take some time to figure out the best method of motivation for each worker and watch them thrive.