Leaders Must Acknowledge Hard Truths

Caring deeply requires honesty

Mankind’s Eternal Dilemma – The Choice Between Virtue and Vice by Frans Francken the Younger, 1633 (Wikimedia Commons - public domain)

“It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of truth.” — John Locke, 1690

If you’ve been following along here, you know that my last two conversations on the podcast have centered on deeply emotional subjects: leading from the heart and trusting and inspiring.

Both require leaders that embrace empathy and care deeply about the people in their charge. Today’s newsletter follows that same pattern.

And it’s been a particularly difficult one to write — perhaps in part because of a topic that’s turned out to be divisive, but also because I feel as if it’s deeply personal.

So I hope you’ll bear with me as I reflect on what it means for a leader to share hard truths, how an experience from my adolescence left a deep and lasting impact on my thinking, and the reality of a recent speech landed with me.

And if you make i…