From a story on axios.com by Jim VandeHei headlined “The beautiful clarity of true candor”:

The hardest thing for most aspiring leaders and managers to master is giving clear, direct and sometimes very hard feedback to others.

Why it matters: Candor, done right, is a time-saving, culture-strengthening, clarifying gift.

• It gives the recipient total, unvarnished visibility instead of false praise or ambiguity.
• If you do it deftly, they will thank you.

The backstory: My obsession with candor was born at the Washington Post. It’s a great paper, but it always troubled me in the mid-2000s that those in charge would move struggling reporters to less prominent beats, without shooting straight with them about their shortcomings.