Niceness and honesty are both things that take work, and can be especially hard when trying to achieve both at once. I think it’s often possible to achieve both, but this often requires either substantial emotional labor or unusual skill on the part of the person giving feedback. Under realistic constraints on time and opportunity cost, niceness and honesty do trade off against each other.
This isn’t an argument to not care about niceness, but I think it’s important to realize that there is an actual trade-off. I personally prefer people to err strongly on the honesty side when giving me feedback. In the most blunt cases it can ruin my day but I still prefer overall to get the feedback even then.
Niceness and honesty are both things that take work, and can be especially hard when trying to achieve both at once. I think it’s often possible to achieve both, but this often requires either substantial emotional labor or unusual skill on the part of the person giving feedback. Under realistic constraints on time and opportunity cost, niceness and honesty do trade off against each other.
This isn’t an argument to not care about niceness, but I think it’s important to realize that there is an actual trade-off. I personally prefer people to err strongly on the honesty side when giving me feedback. In the most blunt cases it can ruin my day but I still prefer overall to get the feedback even then.