Whiteness at Work: On the Use and Abuse of Radical Candor in K-12 Schools
In the summer of 2020, against the background of widespread national protests against police violence, frank conversations about anti-Blackness unfolded around the country. In addition to discussing once again the depraved violence of racist policing practices, we, as a nation, endured a reckoning regarding the impact of racism and anti-Blackness in a variety of workplace settings. From corporate, higher education, and tech fields to the world of art, food, and fashion, few industries emerged unscathed.
Over the last few years, scholars and activists have sought to expose the structures of the nation’s White supremacist work culture. (See, in particular, Matthew Desmond’s article on the link between our current economy and plantation life, as part of Nikole Hannah-Jones’s 1619 Project.) Consequently, much of the national conversation in the summer and fall of 2020 focused on the inner workings of such a culture — from race-based pay gaps and disparities in hiring and promotion to the daily slights and microaggressions suffered by employees who are people of color, and more.
These issues have also surfaced within the nation’s K-12 schools, both public and private, and are driving important and long overdue conversations on what equity, inclusion, and justice should look and feel like in our schools. What is distinct about the White supremacist work culture in our schools, however, is the form it tends to take. In schools, we are more likely to confront what I’d call a “soft” White supremacist culture — a term that encompasses various forms of racism seething just below the workplace surface but that are carefully masked in politeness. This kind of soft racism, it turns out, is embodied in the leadership of all types of schools, even — perhaps especially — those we associate with the liberal left. And though the word “soft” may lead one to believe the racism is less significant than harder, more direct varieties, it is just as deleterious to morale and dignity in the way it produces and reproduces a White supremacist work culture.
Such a culture damages everyone within schools. But for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), this workplace environment is particularly toxic — undermining students’ ability to learn and thrive and for educators to push for needed curricular and cultural change. For those involved formally and informally in leading diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts at schools, soft racism has been a major challenge in their work to support students and educators of color and to guide institutional change. One result in schools is the vicious phenomenon wherein BIPOC DEI leaders and educators cycle in, out, and through companies and schools at an alarming rate. In schools, this revolving door hurts not just these educators, but all of us — students of color, most especially.
While it is important that we render visible these damaging and insidious workplace norms, it’s also important to think carefully about how we collectively respond to them. In the last few years, many schools have embraced an approach to institutional change known as Radical Candor — a concept designed to improve organizational culture through direct, honest conversation and feedback. On paper, Radical Candor sounds like an ideal approach to help schools break through the culture of politeness and surface issues of racial inequity and injustice that need to be addressed. But engaging in Radical Candor requires attentive, knowledgeable, self-aware leadership. It can be done well or poorly. It can lead to institutional change or reinforce the status quo.
The term “Radical Candor” was developed by Kim Scott, a high-tech entrepreneur and organizational consultant. At its core, Radical Candor is an organizational approach designed to break through the wall of reticence (or politeness) to get at institutional issues that need to be acknowledged and addressed. With the concept, Scott sought to introduce a corporate management style that is relationship-centered and focused on transparency, honesty, and trust-building. The argument essentially boils down to this: care personally, challenge directly. The emphasis on care is essential. According to Scott, being a good manager requires a tremendous amount of “emotional labor,” which, while “the most depleting part of the job,” is “the key to being a good boss.”
When Scott’s book on Radical Candor first appeared in 2017, it was initially greeted with widespread enthusiasm and led to the launch of a Radical Candor executive education company, a podcast, and a new and improved edition of the book — all in the span of two years. But the revised edition of the book in 2019 strikes a decidedly less confident, more cautious note than the original. In the new preface, Scott opens with an anecdote demonstrating how the Radical Candor philosophy has been, much to her dismay, co-opted and adapted by bad-faith actors, perhaps unintentionally, perhaps not. As she learned, “some people were using Radical Candor as a license to behave like jerks.” She goes on to discuss the ways that one should actually apply the Radical Candor philosophy to organizational change.
In recent years, I’ve noticed how the notion of Radical Candor has migrated to the world of K-12 education, shedding some of its most critical features along the way. In addition to the challenges Scott notes above, the Radical Candor approach in education is often wielded by those in power — especially White managers who have yet to begin their work as anti-racist allies and who predominate within the highest tiers of K-12 administration — as a tool to demand disclosures from BIPOC that are to their personal, psychological, and professional detriment. This kind of use of Radical Candor is not about transparency; it is intrusion. And such intrusion is in line with Scott’s own fears about how her work has been misunderstood and misappropriated. As Scott states, “Relationships require some privacy.”
According to Scott, not only has Radical Candor become a cover for too-direct critique in general, and thus what she terms “obnoxious aggression” on the part of some managers, but it has also been interpreted as an invitation that we are welcome, indeed entitled, to the inner lives of others. Therefore, when used incorrectly or understood incompletely, the notion of Radical Candor can chip away at “psychological safety” and our ability to create a “productive, happy culture.”
Scott’s observation is important. However, even when used appropriately, the framework contains potential major drawbacks for BIPOC. After the book’s publication, Scott, a White woman, found herself challenged by critiques that her work did not sufficiently take into consideration the risks BIPOC run should they wish to adopt a radically candid approach with their White, White-passing, and White-adjacent colleagues. As she heard time and again, Radical Candor is “more dangerous for women than for men, and even more dangerous for Black women than for White women, for gay women than for straight women.”
Ironically, in an act of radical candor, critics of the approach have asked Scott directly, “Are you sure Radical Candor is safe for people who don’t have the kind of privilege you do?”
Within the predominantly White world of K-12 education, it is well-established that BIPOC educators experience racial battle fatigue. These dynamics are heightened in the feel-good environment of schools — particularly liberal-leaning schools — where educators are frequently enjoined to “bring your whole self to work.” But this invitation neglects the reality that, for some of us, bringing “our whole selves” to the workplace is dangerous, personally and professionally. Why? Because in a school culture where the balance of power and authority is held by White people, it is personally and professionally risky for those without power or authority to say what they really think about sexism, racism, and other forms of oppression in the school culture and work environment. Is it safe for a woman of color in a predominantly White school to point out the various biases she has experienced directly or noticed among other colleagues? What would she suffer if she were to ask a White supervisor who is unwilling to consider his or her White identity to do just that?
Even in schools that pride themselves in trust-building, there are very often barriers not to be crossed. To transgress those boundaries is to court controversy and often invite severe consequences to one’s professional standing within the organization.
For the vast army of women of color who lead DEI work and report to White men in senior positions within their schools, the perils of being subjected to a misinterpreted version of Radical Candor are high indeed. As I’ve heard time and again from my colleagues, in the hands of some White male leaders who have yet to undertake both anti-sexist and anti-racist personal introspection, Radical Candor winds up being a mandate for enforced transparency and “vulnerability” on the part of BIPOC who work under them. Often, they are asked to share the confidences of fellow BIPOC students and colleagues. They are publicly encouraged in staff meetings to share their grief about the pain of racism as a way to activate the empathy of White colleagues. They are then asked to listen to and provide emotional support to White male colleagues who need assurance that they are “good” people, even if their actions (and inactions) fail to demonstrate real anti-racist commitments.
The problem is this: A selective application of the Radical Candor concept in schools winds up being less in line with the intended spirit of Radical Candor — honest conversation that leads to needed institutional change — and more reminiscent of White male entitlement to the emotional lives of women, especially BIPOC women. Indeed, Kate Manne has recently written extensively about this phenomenon in her book on the subject, Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women.
What I’ve noticed in working with schools is that the culture of politeness and the use of Radical Candor tend to mix like oil and water — as apt to create more damage as to do any good.
In their efforts to lead institutional change, it is important for educational leaders to understand that the notion of “nice” takes on a specific valence for BIPOC and more often than not brings us back to the White supremacist workplace norms that scholars and activists have identified over the years. In workplaces, the discourse of nice preaches that any form of disagreement is taboo. In this atmosphere, voicing concerns or reservations about bias and oppression within the community is easily construed as aggression in a culture that proclaims it is conflict-averse. For BIPOC, the culture of nice in equitable institutions constantly breeds inner conflict. They frequently find themselves torn between calling out oppressive structures and keeping their concerns to themselves lest they suffer retribution for challenging the White power structure. This inner conflict, of course, is yet another sign of a toxic work culture. In addition, the enforcement of a culture of nice contains certain worldviews that function too often to silence the voices of BIPOC by claiming that they would be listened to if they would just speak in the “right” tone. “Nice” is thus weaponized against BIPOC, used as a silencing tool. Combine this with the fact that BIPOC are exposed to versions of obnoxiousness and aggression that masquerade as Radical Candor and we have the perfect storm of conditions for a workplace climate steeped in soft White supremacy.
Given the severe psychosocial toll this workplace culture takes on our colleagues of color and, by extension, our students of color — not to mention the damage it does to the mindset of white people and the overall quality of our school community and program — it is high time for us to disrupt these dynamics within our institutions.
Here are some suggestions for White educators in leadership positions:
1. By all means, embrace the spirit of Radical Candor but understand its limitations. Seek out other frameworks that build the courage and compassion necessary for challenging conversations in the workplace. I recommend Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen’s Thanks for the Feedback, Susan Scott’s Fierce Conversations, Stephen M.R. Covey’s The Speed of Trust, or these resources from the Better Arguments Project. Consider discussing these ideas in a professional reading group to help ensure full comprehension.
2. Accept and respect boundaries that your BIPOC colleagues may erect. Hopefully, this article has demonstrated how and why Radical Candor doesn’t always work well as a workplace philosophy for BIPOC. Now, too, you may have a better understanding of why some BIPOC might have had to build walls to begin with — to protect themselves. Try to see this as a rational response to the irrational world in which we all must live. Some are already too vulnerable in this society to make themselves even more vulnerable at work, especially if they have had negative experiences trying to do so in the past.
3. Begin and continue your education as an anti-racist. In addition to educating yourself on race relations and Whiteness in this country, find ways to live the lessons you are learning. More than lofty words and phrases, quiet action is the surest and most effective way of building real, authentic, trusting relationships with BIPOC colleagues in your life.
4. Form anti-racist White affinity groups where you can speak with your White colleagues about the ways in which you may unconsciously prop up White supremacist work cultures of the hard and soft varieties. Use the links in this article, and perhaps this article itself, to help spur on those conversations.
5. If you have the resources, bring in external consultants who can help you uncover varieties of Whiteness at work within your school. I emphasize that these folks should be external for a few reasons. First, they are more likely to have expertise on this niche subject, and thus more likely to lead it effectively. Second, they are less likely to suffer politically and professionally than you and your like-minded colleagues from delivering content that others might find tough to hear. Third, external consultants bring a critical outside perspective that uncovers problematic dynamics internal to the workplace, dynamics to which insiders of the organization may have understandably developed blind spots over the years.
Nimisha Barton is a scholar-activist and diversity and inclusion consultant who works with schools and private colleges and universities. She is currently working on her second book, Just Future: A Brief Guide to Abolitionism in Education.