Care Deeply. Challenge Directly. Feedback is a Gift.
- Cristina Stensvaag
- Oct 30, 2025
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 22
Avoiding feedback doesn’t protect your team -- it limits them. Great leaders know feedback is a gift and show care through honest conversation.
October 30, 2025
Originally published in One More Rep, a weekly newsletter for people managers who want to get better through practice. Subscribe here — it's free.
Clear, caring feedback is one of the fastest ways to build trust and results. Feedback is a gift, and the more you practice it, the stronger you and your team become.
Read
In Radical Candor, Kim Scott describes Radical Candor as the ability to care personally and challenge directly at the same time, to speak the truth because you care. She argues that the best leaders build strong relationships by balancing those two things.
When you care personally but don’t challenge directly, you fall into Ruinous Empathy: you protect feelings at the expense of growth. When you challenge directly without care, you drift into Obnoxious Aggression. And if you do neither, you end up with Manipulative Insincerity: fake harmony that kills trust.
Radical Candor sits at the intersection of care and challenge. It’s the courage to tell the truth because you care.
Rep
Identify one person on your team who would benefit from clear, actionable redirecting feedback this week.
Care personally. Remember that you must have a trusting relationship with someone before redirecting feedback will land. This is where caring personally comes in.
Challenge directly. Be specific: “In the last two meetings, I noticed you interrupted before others finished their thought. This makes it hard for everyone to be heard.
Coach forward. Offer a path: “Next time, try pausing for two seconds before jumping in.”
Reflect
Do I lean too much on care or on challenge?
When was the last time I avoided giving redirecting feedback because I didn’t want to upset someone?
When have I been too direct and missed the connection?
What would change if I saw redirecting feedback as an act of service, not confrontation?
You earn the right to challenge directly by caring deeply. Build the relationship first, and your feedback becomes the gift that helps others grow.
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Cristina Stensvaag is co-founder of LeaderReps and creator of One More Rep, a weekly practice-based leadership newsletter for people managers.