I enjoyed this book for the most part: an easy read with lots of valuable and actionable take-always that I’m already putting into practice. I appreciated the author sharing directly from her experience including mistakes. It does suffer from a trend I notice in many business and leadership, by white authors especially, of including a small chapter on “how to apply all of the lessons to relationships with marginalized people” rather than integrating the central ideas to diverse teams throughout. This book does that and that part is not helpful, though I thought much of the rest was. I’d still recommend it for leaders and managers.

Good concepts: could have been an article instead of a book. Highly repetitive.

3.5

The basic concept is great but it could've been a blog post

Some good insights, but tooooooo long and too much repetition.

“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.”

First and foremost, the book is heavily laden with anecdotes glorifying Silicon Valley elites. Scott frequently name-drops high profile figures, often portraying them in an overly flattering light. This not only feels self-serving but also creates a sense of exclusivity and privilege that is unrelatable to the average reader. The focus on such high-profile names detracts from the universality of the principles she aims to convey.
The book’s overarching tone of Silicon Valley’s relentless pursuit of success and performance can be off-putting. The constant emphasis on high performance and success at the expense of other values can feel alienating to readers who do not subscribe to this ethos. It’s a stark reminder that not everyone aspires to be a “super manager” and that there are many ways to find fulfillment in one’s professional life.

The cultural insensitivity throughout the book is another significant flaw. Scott’s handling of diverse cultural backgrounds is superficial at best and dismissive at worst. For instance, her portrayal of Japanese struggles with feedback and her anecdote about confronting an employee with body odor come off as tone-deaf. This narrow perspective is disappointing and suggests a lack of genuine understanding of cultural nuances in the workplace.

Moreover, many of Scott’s solutions are tailored to organizations with vast resources, making them impractical for most companies. For example: when she wanted to reduce travel during her pregnancy, her boss orchestrated a team offsite near her location. While commendable, such accommodations are unrealistic for many managers, particularly those in smaller or resource-constrained environments. This disparity highlights the book’s disconnect from the realities faced by a broader audience.

The narrative is also bogged down by repetitive and overly simplistic storytelling. The constant rehashing of the same themes and moral lessons becomes tiresome quickly. Scott’s storytelling approach, while intended to be engaging, often feels self-aggrandizing and detracts from the book’s instructional value.
Scott’s advice also often contradicts her professed ideals of servant leadership. She oscillates between advocating for a top-down hierarchical management style and promoting servant leadership, creating confusion and inconsistency. This lack of clarity diminishes the book’s effectiveness and undermines its credibility.

In conclusion, while Radical Candor contains some valuable principles about direct communication and personal care, its execution is very flawed. While the core principle of balancing personal care with direct challenge is sound, the execution leaves much to be desired.

I provided a middle-of-the-road rating because there was some value to me personally as I read the material, but I wouldn’t argue that this is required reading for my team, and I feel ignorant of possibly better literature on the subject. The concept of Radical Candor is simple enough on the surface, and sometimes having simple frameworks leads to better understanding of how to apply it. Not everything needs to be “rocket surgery” to be impactful. I have several takeaways, particularly on how I plan to approach 1:1s, and I appreciate having some addition tools to help overcome my own biases.

As my first foray into leadership books, however, I don’t feel that I have enough comparators to provide a deep analysis. I learned about my own behaviors and reflected on my experiences as I read through this book. I didn’t find the name dropping as contemptuous as other reviewers - mostly because I was concentrating on the lesson or meaning of the stories shared rather than the idolizing (or despising) the reference. Admittedly, I can appreciate the varying leadership styles of Jobs or Google’s founders, but the author tends to shoehorn her examples into the framework for effect.

The academic in me appreciates other reviewers’ suggestions for comparative reading, which I feel is necessary for this book - I don’t plan to take it as gospel, and suggest others consider the same.