tbh: honesty is not a permission slip for carelessness
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Honest Abe's most quoted speech ran 2 minutes. Turns out precision beats bluntness, and this post gets into why:
/think about what 'I'm just being honest' looks like integrity but is really selfish,
/the theory & research behind truthful AND tactful,
/a toolkit with the scripts, and
/a few talking points I want your take on.
Think
"Just being honest..."
I'd just told a colleague about a boundary that really mattered to me. "Just being honest," they said, "I'm not built that way."
Full stop. Nowhere to go from there.
That's when it hit me. This relationship mattered more to me than it did to them. I was willing to do the work of redefining it inside that boundary. They weren't. And "just being honest" let them tell me that without ever having to say it. Maybe they didn't mean it that way. Most people don't. But it didn't matter what they meant. The word did the work anyway.
We've all heard some version of it. Most of us have said it. It masquerades as integrity. Most of the time it's a permission slip.
What it actually means: I said the true thing, and how it lands is your problem.
But the truth was never the hard part. We all know the truth is hard to hear. The hard part is saying it so the other person can actually take it in. That's the job. "Just being honest" is how we skip it.
Then watch what happens. They push back, and we defend the facts. Except nobody was arguing with the facts. They were reacting to the delivery.
And it backfires. Do it often enough and people stop bringing you the truth at all. Get ambushed once and you get careful. So "honest" ends up buying you less honesty, not more.
I call the alternative Fierce Kindness. Tell the truth, and make them feel loved while you do it. It takes more work than "just being honest." That's the point.
Theory (here’s the research)
Communication works when it is both truthful AND has tact. Geoffrey Leech explores pragmatics (the study of the use and meaning of utterances relative to their situations) and explains why raw honesty isn't sufficient communication. Anita Vangelisti explains why it wounds when it isn't, not because it's true, but because it reads as disregard.
Geoffrey Neil Leech passed away August 19, 2014, at 78. He spent his career at Lancaster University, Professor of English Linguistics from 1974 until his 2002 retirement, founded their linguistics department and corpus linguistics research center, and held emeritus status there until his death. Principles of Pragmatics
Anita L. Vangelisti is Interim Dean of the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin. She studies the intersection of communication and emotion in the context of close, personal relationships. When Words Hurt: The Effects of Perceived Intentionality on Interpersonal Relationships
Tools
Sorry, tools are only available delivered to your email every week. It includes:
AI prompts around the word "honesty"
A facilitation guide to help you discuss "honesty" with your group or team
Talking points
Here's what I'm still chewing on, curious what YOU think…
How do cultural differences influence the "Can I be honest?" trap? Referring to my favorite TV show Ted Lasso, the character Jan Maas is known for his brutal honesty. During one episode, Sam Obisanya says, "Hey, guys, Jan Maas is not being rude. He's just being Dutch."
It's all about the inference:
How would "Can I be honest?" followed by something positive, like "that report was really comprehensive" or "your hair looks great today," land? Would that imply that in most cases, it's not the case?
Even if you could ask and wait for permission to tell the truth, would "Can I be honest with you?" itself imply that in other situations, you're not?
