Leaders who are confident in their views and strong in their advocacy often put people on the defensive with their candor.
Delivering honesty without emotional regulation is a recipe for intimidation and perceptions of insensitivity.
Brutally honest and direct advocacy that is not tempered with openness and empathy can make some leaders unbearable. The feedback these highly candid leaders receive is often highly consistent.
They are valued for their frankness and insight, but less respected for the way they make people feel in the process. These leaders often want to soften their bluntness but refuse to give up the many benefits of direct communication. Rightly so.
The answer to this dilemma is that they don’t have to be less direct or honest. They simply need to learn how to add a hedge.
Hedging shifts advocacy from an absolute claim to a subjective impression open to interpretation. A hedge makes a leader’s confident assertion more palatable and reduces defensiveness by balancing honesty with empathy.
In essence, a hedge makes room for alternate viewpoints and rounds the edges of brutal truths. Best yet, hedges only require an extra word or two at the beginning of a statement.
Hedges come in many variations, but the most popular versions are easy to remember and painless to incorporate into a leader’s style:
- “It might be…”
- “I’d suggest…”
- “Could we consider…”
- “Perhaps…”
- “It seems to me…”
- “In my view…”
- “It might be useful to…”
- “I think…”
- “It appears to me…”
- “One option is…”
Of course, there are many others. Hedges invite interpretation and dialogue rather than asserting an indisputable certainty.
They don’t severely diminish the force of a statement nor lessen its honesty.
The strength of the argument remains, while the hedge lightly softens the boldness of the candor.
A note of caution: Leaders who speak more indirectly and with lower confidence can harm their credibility by using hedges, and so can confident leaders who use too many of them, too often.
But for those leaders who typically bulldoze their way toward the truth, hedges can make a world of difference. If you’re the kind of leader who is commonly told you are too direct (and you know who you are), consider incorporating hedges into your advocacy.
Adding hedges to your message-making will temper your honesty with openness and make you less insufferable.
That’s the plain truth. Or better said, “It’s one option you might consider.”
