I recently attended and presented at Jim Knight’s Teaching, Leading, Coaching Conference. The conference generated one of those experiences I love and have rather frequently, where information, insights, and ideas around a common theme run together. My presentation at the conference, What’s Your Coaching Experience? If, When, and How to Offer a Suggestion” explored how coaches make decisions about the feedback, suggestions, or advice that they might provide to a coachee. Since the conference had a virtual element, I had to record a presentation several weeks earlier, so my preparation had me focused on my topic well in advance.

Two keynotes at the conference, that occurred prior to my workshop, provided insights that reinforced and stretched what I was planning to share. Kim Scott, the author of Radical Candor, explored how radical candor provides feedback in a way that challenges people directly and shows you care about them personally. Dr. Christian van Nieuwerburgh and Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener, the authors of Radical Listening: The Art of True Connection, presented new ways to be thinking about how to listen.

Across my years training and coaching instructional coaches and school leaders, I’ve often been asked the question, “Should I make a suggestion to a coachee?” My initial response to the question has been, “it depends.” I designed my session to have participants examine what goes into deciding; “What does it depend on?”  Scott, van Nieuwerburgh, and Biswas-Diener reinforced my “it depends” thinking and provided strategies to help make that decision.

Kim Scott describes radical candor as an approach to communication that balances two essential dimensions: Caring Personally and Challenging Directly. Scott contends that effective feedback and leadership require the courage to be honest and the compassion to be kind. When both elements are present, communication becomes “radically candid.”  Information provided is clear, respectful, and motivated by genuine concern for another’s growth. The framework distinguishes Radical Candor from three unproductive alternatives: Obnoxious Aggression (challenging without care), Ruinous Empathy (caring without challenge), and Manipulative Insincerity (neither caring nor challenging).  Radical Candor builds trust by showing that feedback is offered for the other person’s benefit, not as a critique of their worth.

Scott made this statement in her presentation, and I connected it to my “it depends.” “Feedback is measured not at your mouth, but at the other person’s ear.” In other words, the success of communication depends on how it is received rather than how it is intended. Delivering radical candor means tuning into the listener’s emotional and cognitive state. By considering timing, tone, and relationship, the message lands as helpful rather than harmful. This approach emphasizes humility, curiosity, and dialogue: asking questions, inviting reactions, and being open to adjusting one’s message if it misses the mark.

Radical listening, as presented by van Nieuwerburgh and Biswas-Diener, is a practice of giving full, undivided attention to another person with the intention of creating genuine human connection. It moves beyond the functional act of hearing words to a deeper engagement that honors the speaker’s thoughts, emotions, and identity. Radical listening means deliberately slowing down and suspending one’s impulse to judge, advise, or problem-solve in order to listen with openness and curiosity. This kind of listening is both generous because it offers the gift of presence, and courageous because it requires vulnerability and the willingness to be changed by what one hears. Radical Listening is more than a communication skill. It is a moral stance that affirms the dignity and worth of others.

Radical Listening creates psychological safety and mutual respect because the listener’s goal is not to extract information or reach quick conclusions, but to understand and connect. True listening is inherently relational because both parties can be shaped by the exchange. This practice deepens empathy, fosters trust, and opens pathways to collaboration and co-construction of future actions.

In my session I asked participants if they have ever heard either of these comments after offering a suggestion to a coachee.

• “I’m excited to try this out and would love to work together on some ways to kick it off effectively.”
• “I’ve been teaching this way for years and it’s worked fine for me; I don’t see a need to change my approach now.”

Then I asked, could you have predicted the response?

If you predicted the first response, it would reinforce that you were reading the” coachee” appropriately.

If you didn’t predict this response, consider what you might have been missing in reading their verbal and nonverbal responses. Is it possible you moved too quickly into a problem-solving mode? If you predicted the second response, it reinforced your reading of the “coachee.” But now the big question, “Why did you make the suggestion?”

Here are my closing suggestions. Knowing that my audience chose this session from a list of options and it was late in the last day of the conference, and they participated actively throughout, I read them as ready.

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