What is ruinous empathy? How does it compare to radical candor?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ruinous empathy is a type of feedback that results from caring personally, but not challenging directly. Praise and criticism can both fall short in this way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keep reading to understand more about ruinous empathy and what Radical Candor<\/em> says about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n As a boss, your feedback can fall into one of four quadrants along the axes of caring personally<\/em> and challenging directly<\/em>: \u201cobnoxious aggression,\u201d \u201cmanipulative insincerity,\u201d \u201cruinous empathy,\u201d and radical candor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ruinous empathy happens when you care very much about your employees, to the point that you\u2019re too afraid to challenge them at all. This fear drives you to focus on being polite and letting everyone avoid uncomfortable situations, rather than giving and soliciting sincere feedback. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Praise from a place of ruinous empathy<\/strong> is not specific, and only scratches the surface of the situation. If your employee gives a presentation that went well, you might encourage them with a simple, \u201cGreat presentation today! It went absolutely perfectly.\u201d You don\u2019t name particular points that went especially well for them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Criticism from a place of ruinous empathy<\/strong>, if there is any<\/em>, is insincere or far too nice\u2014it often doesn\u2019t sound like criticism at all. Imagine your employee\u2019s presentation didn\u2019t go well. It was confusing and left everyone with a number of questions at the end. Instead of addressing the problem, you might gloss over it by saying, \u201cGreat presentation! There were so<\/em> many questions at the end, but you fielded them well.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Radical candor\u2019s components of caring personally and challenging directly are essential to giving good, sincere feedback\u2014which naturally contributes to trusting relationships with your reports. Radically candid guidance usually includes both praise and <\/em>criticism together in order to demonstrate that you care enough to want to boost your employee\u2019s confidence, and that you care enough to show them the ways they can be better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Praise from a place of radical candor<\/strong> is very specific to the recipient\u2014when you\u2019re acting with radical candor, you should be attuned to how your praise is landing with your recipient and be prepared to change it if it\u2019s not quite right. For example, imagine that you have an obvious dislike for dogs and say to your employee, \u201cI think it\u2019s really cool that you foster dogs.\u201d Your praise will feel insincere and forced. Instead, try praise such as, \u201cI admire how much work you put into training your foster dogs and matching them to the right homes. You\u2019re so driven at work as well, so it\u2019s not surprising.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Criticism from a place of radical candor<\/strong> is always sincere, and is given both when things go poorly and when things go well. For example, Sheryl Sandberg once gave Scott radically candid feedback about her speaking style at Facebook. After a stellar presentation, she pulled Scott aside to talk. She started with praise for Scott\u2019s persuasion skills, and then noted that Scott used the word \u201cum\u201d too much. She frankly explained that overuse of \u201cum\u201d was undermining Scott\u2019s credibility, and set her up with a speech therapist to address the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s important to note that no one<\/strong> <\/em><\/strong>acts with radical candor 100% of the time\u2014you\u2019ll likely fluctuate between guidance styles several times just in the span of one day<\/strong>. But, you should keep tabs on your guidance style and know if you\u2019re acting out of line with radical candor more often than not. Here\u2019s a thought exercise that can help you consider which guidance style you fall under most of the time: think honestly about what your reaction would be if you saw a colleague with their fly down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Don\u2019t get bogged down with the idea that in order to be helpful, you need to hold your employee\u2019s hand through their work. Radically candid feedback does the heavy lifting by clarifying what the problem is, so your employee can find the solution more quickly\u2014this is accomplished through three helpful actions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is ruinous empathy? How does it compare to radical candor? Ruinous empathy is a type of feedback that results from caring personally, but not challenging directly. Praise and criticism can both fall short in this way. Keep reading to understand more about ruinous empathy and what Radical Candor says about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,34,14],"tags":[177],"class_list":["post-21924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-communication","category-management","tag-radical-candor","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nOverview of Ruinous Empathy and the Other Types of Guidance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/td> Not Challenging Directly<\/strong><\/td> Challenging Directly<\/strong><\/td><\/tr> Caring Personally<\/strong><\/td> Ruinous Empathy<\/td> Radical Candor<\/td><\/tr> Not Caring Personally<\/strong><\/td> Manipulative Insincerity<\/a><\/td> Obnoxious Aggression<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Ruinous Empathy<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Radical Candor<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Helpfulness<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n