Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to mediate an abnormally large amount of interpersonal conflict. The causes of conflict were typical, often including miscommunication and lack of alignment on expectations.

One common explanation was “I’m just being myself”, “I’m just being real”, “I’m just being candid” or similar. In some cases a referral to the book Radical Candor was in order, but often that wasn’t going to be well received.

What I have found to have some impact is this:

You can be authentic, and you can do so in a constructive manner, or a destructive manner. The method you select is your choice.

If the person has a history of making the destructive choice, it can take a lot of work to even see a constructive path. In the end, it’s still a choice.