Singing at the Choir! Choir! Choir! Dolly Parton tribute with an OG.
I recently wrote about a soft-hard-soft model of conversation and feedback, one that I’ve found helpful.
Karen Wright, a good friend and extremely experienced coach (she’s pretty much the OG here in Canada) DM’d me to say … yes, but you’ve missed a key point, you straight white male.
(She didn’t say it exactly like that, but I read between the lines.)
And it’s true. I like to think that most of the time when I’m discussing influence and leadership, I build in the context that how much status and power you have often determines the appropriateness and effectiveness of any one tactic.
For instance, I’m able to be very self-deprecating when talking about myself because I have a lot of inherent status or rank that I can give away.
Anyhow, my response to Karen was “you’re right, Wright”. And she made such a good case for it that I invited her to write a nuanced reply to my article, which she’s done beautifully.
I think you’ll enjoy this …
The Feedback Paradox: Why Your Best Coaching Tool Is Your Worst Meeting Strategy
As a long-overdue replacement for the traditional feedback “sandwich,” MBS proposes the “soft-hard-soft” model, which uses mitigating or conditional language (the “soft”) as an initial empathetic entry point to what might be feared as a difficult conversation.
By framing the entry point tentatively — using disclaimers like “I could have it completely wrong” — leaders build the psychological safety required to deliver a hard truth without triggering a defensive response.
It is a brilliant, high-EQ coaching tool. However, in my view, leaders need to understand mitigating language as a precision tool for developmental coaching, not an everyday leadership approach. In particular, research shows that women often lean toward mitigating language by default to maintain workplace harmony (and on occasion, manage their own discomfort with being assertive).
While this instinct is effective as an approach when setting the stage for difficult feedback, using it as a default communication style across all business situations risks undermining authority.
The distinction lies in clarifying the objective and the audience. MBS writes that the “soft” framing works because you are holding the truth lightly, giving the recipient an exit to “take it or leave it.”
But true leadership agility means recognizing when a situation requires you to establish and get support for a position rather than offer an exit:
- Group Meetings: Large meetings are public forums where leadership potential is continuously evaluated. Introducing an idea with mitigating language (e.g., “I just wanted to chime in…”) invites the room to critique your right to speak rather than the substance of your thought.
- Peer Disagreements: When navigating friction with colleagues, heavily buffered language creates dangerous ambiguity. Phrases like “I could be wrong, but…” cause teams to waste time debating whether a problem actually exists. Peer-to-peer misalignment requires objective clarity to establish roles and boundaries.
- Proposing New Ideas: Pitching an innovation requires the speaker to act as its champion. Research shows that direct, promotion-focused language is tied to securing executive buy-in. If you frame a new proposal as “just a rough thought,” you undermine its perceived viability before it even gets off the ground.
Ultimately, MBS’ model works because it treats empathy as a gateway to accountability — critical in a conversation about performance effectiveness and necessary change.
The most effective leaders recognize that mitigating language is the language of coaching, designed to protect relationships and foster growth. Conversely, authoritative language is the language of direction, designed to project clarity, drive alignment, and inspire confidence.
BOTH are the languages of effective leadership, the choice being a result of the leader perceiving what the audience and situation require, which means finding the courage to practice what MBS calls “Fierce Love” in our coaching, while maintaining the authority required to lead a room.
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t offer this reminder: Feedback is not, by definition, bad news. It’s information about the effectiveness or impact of a behaviour delivered back to the originator of that behaviour. Which means it can — and should — be used to convey successes as well as developmental opportunities.
Karen Wright is founder of Parachute Executive Coaching and author of the LinkedIn newsletter Words about Work. Give it a follow… she’s got great stuff in there on rethinking leadership development.
