Some team members prefer to speak their mind.
Unfortunately for the team, they offer their direct and candid views about everything and all the time.
They believe anything less lacks integrity, even though their remarks often offend, insult, and miss the point.
Managing a team member who contributes unedited and unfiltered viewpoints often means doing damage repair after meetings and conversations. If you have a team member who fits this profile, you know how challenging this can be.
Most truth-tellers lack empathy, self-awareness, and perspective. Hopefully, they add tremendous substance even if their messages ricochet wildly and are usually unpalatable.
In many cases, it is the smartest team member who can be highly literal and unvarnished in their pronouncements. They typically get labeled as “too direct,” which underplays the harsh reality.
They express whatever they are thinking without consideration of the context or the relationship consequences to everyone’s detriment, especially theirs.
The question for leaders is how to manage these controversial team members.
The first move is to show them the cause and effect of their choice not to edit. Even the most dedicated truth-tellers want to have an impact with their views.
By illustrating to them the negative effects of their unfiltered comments, leaders can prove they are doing a disservice to themselves and others by diminishing the influence of their honesty.
Debriefing meetings and conversations with them and asking them to role-play how they could have said things differently is tedious but necessary work.
Asking them to separate their “truth” from the timing, audience, and context of an issue won’t be easy for them.
So, good leaders pose a simple question for them to ask as frequently as they can: How can I best express my candid view so others will want to hear more of it?
By showing them the benefit of restraint, truth-tellers slowly lose their faith in the false binary between unedited truth and integrity.
Unfortunately, the likelihood of completely transforming their approach to expressing themselves is low, so good leaders do something unusual to help them.
They provide a venue for their unfiltered truth.
They give them a release valve for their candidness by sitting with them on occasion and asking for their unvarnished views about specific issues. Leaders encourage their complete openness by dedicating a specific time for it.
This also provides a teaching moment. After getting their full download, they remind them that their directness is most valuable when they consider the situation and the needs of others.
Leaders and teams typically tolerate truth-tellers because they are smart, add important insights to the discussion, and encourage the team to speak more openly.
But there comes a point where they must learn to edit themselves, or it is best to find another place to express themselves candidly.
As with many team member challenges, the difference in learning is usually effective leadership.
