4 stars

Honestly one of the most helpful and practical management books I've read. Highly recommend!

[Audiobook] This book highlights the importance of feedback to your team, and a detailed guide of how to do so. More targeted towards an American audience, but Scott does touch on different cultures and how they differ with giving feedback.

3.5 stars. Lots of good content mixed with some boring bits.

I took a LONG time to read this (years?), but I did get a lot out of it (like a lot of management books, this probably could have been a long article versus a whole book, which I think it part of why I kept putting it down). I liked that it was focused solely on how to manage people well, since I think management skills in general are not enough of a focus in training at work. Nothing is earth-shattering with the concepts in Radical Candor, but I appreciated the framework of focusing on building relationships with direct reports while also focusing on direct feedback.

This was a valuable book for anyone in a leadership position. The premise of the book is leaders need to build valuable, personal relationships with employees but maintaining strict accountability. Author, Kim Scott, uses personal accounts from her days at Google and Apple to showcase effective uses of radical candor. She draws on the leadership style of Steve Jobs and Larry Page to show how radical candor can look different depending on the personality type of the leader and work culture.

“Make sure that you are seeing each person on your team with fresh eyes every day. People evolve, and so your relationships must evolve with them. Care personally; don’t put people in boxes and leave them there.”

“The essence of leadership is not getting overwhelmed by circumstances.”

“When bosses are too invested in everyone getting along they also fail to encourage the people on their team to criticize one another other for fear of sowing discord. They create the kind of work environment where being "nice" is prioritized at the expense of critiquing and therefore improving actual performance.”

“The way you ask for criticism and react when you get it goes a long way toward building trust—or destroying it.”

“The fastest path to artificial relationships at work, and to the gravitational pull of organizational mediocrity, is to insist that everyone have the same worldview before building relationships with them.”