How do we speak truth in love? I’ve never been a huge fan of the term ‘feedback’. It summons images in my mind of squawky out of tune microphones blaring viciously whilst rigged into cheap amplifiers set up in run-down venues. So when someone asks me for feedback, I’m half-concerned that I’m going to sound out of tune and squawky. The other side is when someone looks to give me feedback. Of course, in theory, I should do all the right things and lovingly accept whatever is said to me as pearls of wisdom. Some times, they are!
But other times, the feedback is less about me, and more about the person getting some slight off their chest. I remember once preaching on God’s passion for friendship with humanity. Afterwards, a lady felt it was her place to give me ‘feedback’ which revolved around the lack of balance in my message – “what about the awesome, reverent holiness of God which makes him unapproachable?” she asked. My feedback to her feedback fell on deaf ears, and she wasn’t interested in hearing that balance is achieved through seasons, and not through moments. In her mind, her feedback was that I wasn’t accurate in portraying the transcendence or distance of God, despite the focus of that week’s message. Interestingly, my experience of her wording was less love and more her truth. She certainly did speak, but I’m not sure in a way I would hear!
The Role of Feedback
As leaders, a key part of our role is discipling and training others. It’s our responsibility to partner with those we lead to see them grow in godly character, skills and experience. Encouragement, challenge, and yes, feedback, are essential to this. But feedback makes it feel like an assessment, doesn’t it? When someone says they have feedback for you, do you jump up and down inside with glee? Or does part of you swallow hard and prepare for the worst? Especially when they use the scripture ‘speak the truth in love’ to prepare you for what seems like a conversation that will be enjoyable to them but not to you!
So let’s not give any more feedback. Let’s give guidance. Stop presenting opinions, and instead coach. Connect what you’re saying to the prophetic destiny of the person you’re speaking to. If we don’t know that, perhaps we should find out before we start bringing feedback!
As I mentioned earlier, Ephesians 4:15 contains a well-known phrase horribly misused: “speak the truth in love.” I bet many of us have been punched in the face by criticism veiled in that verse (“I’m just speaking the truth in love”). Funny how it’s often the love missing when that happens. Warren Wiersbe said “truth without love is brutality and love without truth is hypocrisy.” So perhaps this verse, when embraced correctly, contains within it a great principle in it for leaders to consider when giving guidance.
Let’s go all visual and picture a graph. Using these two principles as the axes, we can see our guidance can come from four different angles:
How would these play out in a leadership context? Consider the scenario – someone you are leading or managing makes a mistake that needs to be addressed. In effect, however you address it, you have four methods, three of which I think are flawed. Let’s look at each in turn:
The First Mistake: Low Truth + Low Love = Insincere Flattery
Guiding from a place of low love, and not sharing truthfully, will result in insincere flattery because the real issue will be skirted around and not addressed or made clear and there isn’t any motivation anyway to help the person develop. This betrays the person, who would benefit from hearing the information you would be holding back. Negatives are ignored, and conversations are not honest underneath any interactions. People are tolerated and dismissed, even if they are smiled at and made to feel valued. This lack of honesty leads to the detriment of the person in the long-term who may never learn or grow and can suddenly find that they’ve underperformed and never been told.
The Second Mistake: Low Truth + High Love = Harmful Compassion
Harmful compassion results from having a high opinion of someone but not wanting to tell them straight. This reassures and papers over mistakes or learning moments, minimising them so they don’t seem a big deal. It’s dressed up in the “I don’t want to hurt them” feeling, but it harmful because it actually is protecting them from pain that will benefit them. These motives may be good, but they are foolish.
The Third Mistake: High Truth + Low Love = Uncaring Curtness
Having a high value on speaking truth but without love is uncaring curtness. Sometimes people evangelise this way! They feel that saying what needs to be said is good enough, and if feelings are hurt, well, that’s not their responsibility. Sometimes this is because of social clumsiness, but other times it can simply be a cruel bullying or rude bluntness. This type of guidance will lead to resentment because it doesn’t come across as wanting the best for someone. The message is important, but so is the messenger; this style also loses its impact after a while because people become accustomed to, and therefore immune and dismissive to it.
No Mistake: High Truth + High Love = Truthful Guidance
Truthful guidance is where we want to land. We want to value people so much that we feel compelled to bring good guidance and coaching to them because we want to see them thrive, develop and grow. It’s an essential part of discipleship and an essential skill all leaders need to develop. Without it, our people will face an unnecessary obstacle to their growth: us.
There, that’s my bit of truthful guidance for you!
So cultivate a love for the people you lead, and cultivate the ability and bravery to quickly, clearly and cleanly share the truth with them. They’ll thank you for it!
