Leadership: Candor

“That was very helpful”
“You are being inappropriate!”

What the hell do these sentences mean?

Nothing

One of the biggest issues Christians face is a lack of candor, I define candor as:

Clearly communicating what needs to be said when you need to say it.

I think we lack candor because we want to be nice and we do not want to hurt the other persons feelings.

This is gutless.

And not loving.

Loving people means saying the hard things, whereas being nice means you will make them feel good.

If you want to love people be candid.

Candor is not just used when you need to say the hard thing, it is also used in giving specific feedback.

We could say “that sermon was very helpful/lovely/etc.” and thereby not really say anything about the sermon. Or you could say “What I really dug about the sermon is that you made me clearly see X by showing me Y. I also loved your illustration about the dog it worked because of A. Also, what your application did was highlight this area of weakness in my life by applying what was aid in verse 6 this way.” See how this communicates far more but requires far more thought from us.

In short, candor informs better, it communicates more, it allows people to have their say and it if you start using it people will be candid with you which will help you make better calls.

How candid are you?