Kim Scott
Author of Radical Candor (2017) and Radical Respect (2024); earlier a CEO coach at Dropbox, Qualtrics and Twitter, on the faculty of Apple University, and leader of the AdSense, YouTube and DoubleClick teams at Google.
Kim Scott did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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Their wordsWe don’t have to choose between being a good person and being super successful. We can have both. We can care personally and challenge directly at the same time, and that’s really what Radical Candor is all about.
↗The Most Important Thing Leaders Should Think About in 2026kimmalonescott.medium.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsI think the most important thing for leaders to think about in 2026 is that they need to start by soliciting feedback and then reward the candor when they get it. Leaders need to lay their power down. The best thing leaders can do to create a culture of psychological safety is to encourage people to tell them when they’re wrong.
↗The Most Important Thing Leaders Should Think About in 2026kimmalonescott.medium.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsAnd by the way, psychological safety does not mean no conflict. It means productive conflict. It means encouraging people to tell you when you’re wrong — and rewarding the candor when you get it. Rewarding candor does not always mean agreeing with what people say.
↗The Most Important Thing Leaders Should Think About in 2026kimmalonescott.medium.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 7 months earlier
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Our reading
Becoming the boss puts you under a microscope; people read meaning into everything you say and do.
Their wordsWhen you become the boss, you are under the microscope. People do listen to you in an intense way you never experienced before you became a manager. They attribute meaning — sometimes accurately, sometimes not — to what you say, to the clothes you wear, to the car you drive.
↗Every Move You Make: The Unexpected Influence of Being the Bosskimmalonescott.medium.com
- 6 weeks earlier
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Their wordsOne of the most important goals of a one-on-one meeting is to listen. And when you can’t listen to every person every week, you have to find a scalable way to create a culture of listening. That’s where an ideas team comes in.
↗3 Ways You Can Scale a Culture of Listeningkimmalonescott.medium.com
- 4 weeks earlier
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Their wordsI’ve said it before, but it’s worth saying again: Emotional dysregulation, bullying and bloviating are not leadership attributes. People who cannot manage themselves should not manage others. But as we all know, there are many people in positions of power who abuse it, despite there being a growing consensus that coercion, even by otherwise visionary leaders, neither gets the best results out of people nor generates the innovation necessary to thrive in the modern economy.
↗Leadership ≠ Control: How to Avoid the Authoritarian Spiralkimmalonescott.medium.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsFor these situations, companies have a compliance function that should have a strong leader. The compliance function should report directly to the audit committee and can go around the CEO if needed. The internal audit function works the same way for the same reasons.
↗Leadership ≠ Control: How to Avoid the Authoritarian Spiralkimmalonescott.medium.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsThe issue here is that the people who have the most power — the people on the board of directors — are generally best positioned to dodge accountability. This puts HR in a terrible position unless the organizational structure is deliberately designed to limit the power of the CEO. The board of directors must hold the CEO accountable and have HR’s back.
↗Leadership ≠ Control: How to Avoid the Authoritarian Spiralkimmalonescott.medium.com 3rd of 3 in this piece