Top CEO coach and former Google exec says this is the No. 1 trait great bosses share
Kim Scott knows what makes a good boss. After she helped lead Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL)'s AdSense team, Scott became a sought-after CEO coach in Silicon Valley, advising C-suite clients at Dropbox, Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) and other top companies.
Every leader has his or her own style, but Scott says that the best ones have one characteristic in common: Great bosses share a trait Scott calls "radical candor."
Made up of two key components, it's a trait the coach says every manager should be trying to cultivate:
1. Care about your employees
The first part having radical candor is caring about more than just metrics and results.
"It's not enough to care only about people's ability to perform a job," Scott writes in her new book "Radical Candor."
In order to be a great boss, you have to go beyond being professional, you have to want to get to know your employees on a human level, she says.
This doesn't mean memorizing birthdays or names of family members, but having real conversations and getting to know your employees. Perhaps counterintuitively, it's about acknowledging that your employees are people with lives and aspirations that extend beyond those related to shared work.
"It's about giving a damn," the former Google exec says, "sharing more than just your work self and encouraging everyone who reports to you to do the same."
2. Establish open and honest conversations
The second dimension of radical candor involves being open and honest with your employees, both when their work is good and when it isn't.
Speaking honestly about someone's performance shows that "you care enough to point out the things that aren't going well and those that are," the expert says.
When a person's work is not up to par, challenge them to improve and offer to help them do so.
"This develops trust," Scott writes.
By combining these two strategies, managers can boost team morale, which has in turn been shown to boost productivity and results, according to the former Google exec.
"Caring personally about people even as you challenge them will build the best relationships of your career," she says.
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