Say their work isn’t good enough while caring about them too

This week, the 2 Minute Tip has been sharing communications tips for great bosses, from Kim Scott’s Radical Candor. Tuesday, we covered “care personally,” and yesterday, we discussed “challenge directly.” Today, we’ll look at what happens when you put them together.

The point of the book is that you can say someone’s work isn’t good enough while caring about them too.

Here is Scott’s graphic on how the four kinds of bosses:

Image by Kim Scott, from Twitter.

The vertical dimension, caring personally, is about giving a damn. The best bosses actually care about you as a human being.

The horizontal dimension, challenging directly, is about actually telling people their work isn’t good enough, or that they need to improve, or that the results they’re getting don’t justify further time investment.

Most bosses struggle with both of these things, so when someone does them both well, it’s a radical departure from what most managers do.

As a boss, relationships are at the core of your job. It’s your relationships, not power, that will drive your career forward.