When you say "brutal candor," the ones who understand how to create psychological safety will understand it as the ability to give real criticism without fear of retaliation. That's rare and refreshing when I see it.
However, I can think of several cases of managers I know who really should learn to create psychological safety, but they would read this as validation for establishing a straight pipeline from reptile brain to mouth as opposed to giving actionable criticism.
In one case, that literally happened: the manager read a book that framed communication with similar connotations to "brutal" and took it as license that he should continue to say things the way he did and expect others to suck it up. Unsurprisingly, it got so bad that all of his direct reports threatened to leave.
When you say "brutal candor," the ones who understand how to create psychological safety will understand it as the ability to give real criticism without fear of retaliation. That's rare and refreshing when I see it.
However, I can think of several cases of managers I know who really should learn to create psychological safety, but they would read this as validation for establishing a straight pipeline from reptile brain to mouth as opposed to giving actionable criticism.
In one case, that literally happened: the manager read a book that framed communication with similar connotations to "brutal" and took it as license that he should continue to say things the way he did and expect others to suck it up. Unsurprisingly, it got so bad that all of his direct reports threatened to leave.