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Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity

Cassidy E. Carmichael

OGL 482 Pro-Seminar II

Spring A

Dr. Janice Lawhorn

January 21, 2024

How someone describes a great boss can be subjective but Radical Candor: Be a

Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott, helps explain how someone

becomes the type of boss who can build strong relationships, while still getting results that will

help create the best workplace.

What is your review of this book, in its entirety?

Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott was a

book that I really felt like I related to along with helping me see other perspectives. Scott talks

about how the key thing that sets a really great boss away from a bad one is, how they are able to

build a good and healthy relationship with their staff, along with maintaining their happiness

while still challenging them. This at first seemed like a tall order, to me, it seemed like a lot to be

able to juggle. After getting through most of the book, I realized that simply showing that you

care about a person is the first and biggest step, and everything else should fall into place after

that. Building that trusting relationship is described in two dimensions, caring personally and

challenging directly. These things together are what creates Radical Candor. When you care

personally, you are showing your employees who you really are. As the leader, it’s important to

help set a standard and leading by example is a great way to show everyone how you care. Ask

the questions, get to know the staff. Doing so can help the staff not only connect with you, but

connect with those around them as well. Work doesn’t always have to be so serious or so black

and white. We can still have fun while remaining professional.

Challenging the staff directly goes hand and hand with caring personally because it’s still

very important to make sure the standards are being upheld to a place we want them to be and

over time, trust and understanding should be set and stone. Once this is set into place, the staff
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should want to keep these standards high themselves, and as the leader you won’t have to worry

about constantly being on your team about rules and standards.

● Would you recommend the book to a colleague or student focused on learning

organizational leadership studies? Why?

What lessons resonated with you from this book?

One of the biggest lessons that resonated with me was how a good boss should be able to

show their employees how much they deeply care about them. It can be easy for a boss to

remove humanity from the workplace, this is because oftentimes people don’t like to mix work

life problems with real life problems. While it makes sense that you wouldn’t want to mix those

two things, if someone is going through something personal and you show that you care, that can

mean so much to that person. My real life boss is a great example of someone who does this. My

boss has been through a lot of really hard things, especially in the last few years. I found it really

admirable that she is so willing to open up about her problems and it made me feel like I could

open up to her about the things I have been going through. This helped to make our workplace

feel very safe and comfortable. We are constantly checking in with each other and making sure

everyone is doing well, and if they aren’t, we give them helpful resources as a push in the right

direction.

Another lesson that I took away from this book is to always lead with emotion. The book

shares that oftentimes leaders can fail because they get so obsessed with remaining professional.

Society has made it seem like if a leader shows any kind of care or interest in something other

than the business itself, it’s unprofessional. I’m hopeful that society is stepping away from this

view because as a leader myself, I want my employees to know that I am human too. I want to

show them that I care a lot about the company, that I am a serious boss that wants everyone to do
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what they are supposed to be doing, but I also want to show them that I am someone they may be

able to relate to. That I am a safe person who can be a listening ear, I want to hear feedback

about the workplace, even if it’s negative.

Team-building is another lesson that really stood out to me because it’s an area of the

workplace that I think I thrive in, but is something I am constantly working at. A big part of my

day to day at work is making sure people are in a position that they will thrive in to ensure the

day goes smoothly. Everyday I work with a different group of people and it’s my job to lead the

floor and deploy that group of people into a specific position to make sure that once the rush

comes in, we are ready and that we stay afloat during that time. Doing this, shows my employees

that I know where their strong parts are and there will be some days I will want to challenge

them, so I will put them in a position that they may need to work on. This way of creating a

strong team not only helps me during my shifts, but it helps the other managers to make sure

they have reliable and strong people, along with helping the employee with expanding their

skills.

How did your book connect to other organizational leadership courses? Think about

lectures, discussions, and activities from previous courses you have taken.

Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott

reminded me of a few of my other organizational leadership courses. The first one that came to

mind was OGL 355 Leading Organizational Innovation and Change course. This was one of my

classes that I was placed in a team for and it was up to us to lead ourselves to success. Within

this course we had to choose an organization that we were going to study over the length of the

course. After we came together as a team to choose an organization, we had to create team
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expectations and roles. When I read about the three keys to excellence in Radical Candor, it

reminded me of going through that process with my team for this project.

We all agreed to give each other feedback, and there were a few times where that

feedback wasn’t always positive, this relates to the guidance key.

The team-building key was accomplished by us volunteering for the roles we knew we

could accomplish. This team, we called ourselves the revolutionary masterminds, were really

good at communicating our strengths. We met each week and we always encouraged each other

to speak up if they needed help within an area or if they may have bitten off more than they

could chew for that week.

Our results were always positive, even if we needed to make changes based on the

professor's advice, we were all dedicated to making those changes and trying to get the best

grade possible. I believe each member of my team received an A or B in the class, along with our

final presentation we all received an A! This class was one of the more challenging ones of my

OGL courses, but it taught me a lot and I am grateful for the experience.

How does this book differ from anything you have learned while earning your

organizational leadership degree?

Nothing really comes to mind when I read this question. Radical Candor is different from

the other aspects of my organizational leadership degree, but I think it’s something that can be

factored into a lot of the things I've learned along the way. One of my very first OGL classes was

OGL 340: The Future of Humanity: Dialogue in the Workplace. The course is described as

learning about how to develop and enhance skills needed in effective organizations such as

communication and the use of technology. Within this class we had a few required textbooks,
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one of those books was On Dialogue by David Bohm. This book talks a lot about the human

experience and what it means to be human.

I think On Dialogue and Radical Candor are two books that show how important

communication is, especially when you’re leading a team. A model I remember from OGL 340

was called H.E.A.R and it stood for Hear the Other Person, Explain your understanding of What

the Other Person Said, Ask for More Information and Respond. This model and parts of Radical

Candor go hand and hand because if you are truly taking the time to hear the other person out,

explaining what you heard and asking for more information, can really show a person, especially

if that person is someone you’re above in the workplace, that you care about giving them good

feedback or a good solution to their problem.

What aspects of the book do you most identify with or associate with from your book?

Explain your answer in detail.

The aspects of the book that I most identify with are giving clear and honest feedback and

managing my team. Giving clear and honest feedback is something that I have always naturally

done while at work. I am not the one to beat around the bush or to allow people to do things

incorrectly. If I notice someone doing something wrong, I typically will tell them in a casual

manner and help them fix the issue if that is necessary. I always assume that that person made the

mistake unintentionally and therefore, it is my responsibility to make sure they do it right going

forward. There is a lot that goes into my job, truthfully I think the training for my workplace

should be longer than it is because there are often a lot of things that can be missed. We also have

staff who come from other locations and some locations of my job can really care less about the

standards. I always make sure that those partners understand that we do care about the standards
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and if they need to relearn anything or if there are things they simply don’t know, we will show

them.

When it comes to managing my team, Radical Candor talks about how it’s important to

have career conversations and having plans in place to help career growth. These aspects are

things the company I work for also finds really important so we have yearly career growth

conversations. These conversations help us better understand what everyone's individual goals

are. We have many people who are content in their roles and don’t have any desire to move up in

the company. We always respect that choice but we still check in every year to make it clear that

their choice can change if that is something they want.

After reading the book and reflecting on the content, how can you make an impact as an

organizational leader?

What I took away the most from this book that I hope to take with me in my current

leadership job and any future jobs is just always be a serious person that people can come to. I

believe having that perfect balance of being serious in my role, following the rules and standards,

and being direct will show people that I am serious about my job and my role within the

company and being friendly, relatable and honest will show people that I truly care about them

and I will always be someone they can come to if needed. I think I have that balance now, but I

think it’s something I can constantly be improving on and I think that is something I will take

with me into any future jobs, and even life in general.

If you could ask the author one question, what would it be? Why would this add to your

understanding?

If I was able to ask a question, I think I would ask about if there was ever a time when

having this balance didn’t work? Are there companies who want the leader to always be super
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outgoing? Are there companies who always want the leader to be super strict? Having an answer

to this question may help me better understand if this way of leadership is bulletproof? Is there

any room for failure for this leadership style?

Reference:

Scott, K. (2019). Radical candor: Be a kick-ass boss without losing your humanity. St.

Martin’s Press.