The Honesty Challenge

I vividly remember the time I lied to my father as a child.

When I was found out, he told me that he was “disappointed” and that I would have to earn back his trust.

That was the last time I remember lying about anything.

Pair that with being Autistic, and honesty isn’t even so much a value for me, as it is how I’m built. But beyond my own personal relationship with honesty, I think it is so fundamental to any pursuit of changing the world, that I included it in the Superhero Code.

Honesty is the basis of trust, and in order to help others, I must first establish trust. I will not lie, I will speak only what I know to be true.

All of the prior challenges involved some element of honesty. Either being honest with ourselves, or honest with others. Because trying to move forward quickly and powerfully is significantly more difficult when built on the shaky foundation of dishonesty.

Today, let’s explore honesty from a few different angles, and then challenge ourselves to take our commitments just a little bit farther.

Unspoken Truth

If there is any complication with honesty, it is that the world doesn’t always reward it.

Sometimes people want something softer than truth. They want a diplomatic non-answer or the reassurance that nothing is actually wrong…even when something clearly is.

Other times, the politics of a space make it difficult to speak the truth to power. We’re rarely incentivized to call out what’s wrong to the person who signs our check, or when the person telling the lies has a badge.

These are just some of the reasons that honesty may feel a bit risky.

• It can be a social risk that someone gets offended, or walks away from the interaction less inclined to be around people who say the uncomfortable truth.
• It can be a risk that despite your honest intentions to improve things at work, you may be on the receiving end of an honest conversation about your “attitude,” “tact,” or even your continued employment.
• It can be a risk that even when you are correct, the person armed with a weapon and qualified immunity may react to your honesty as the reason why they “feared for their life.”

These are some of the potential consequences that keep us silent instead of honest.

Shades of Honesty

Many people think of honesty as just “the absence of lying.”

While this is technically and definitionally true, I want to point out something that is REALLY important to understand. There are A LOT of different ways to say something honestly so that it is true and not a lie. This is important to understand because the way you choose to deliver honest words, can produce wildly different outcomes.

Further, many people confuse honesty with unfiltered or unconstrained opinions. When asked if you would like another serving of mac ‘n cheese, it’s probably sufficient to say “no, thank you” rather than “absolutely not, this was awful, and by the way, that outfit looks awful on you.” Both are honest but only one is likely to produce a positive outcome.

All of this is to clarify that honesty is a big enough idea to encompass a number of different approaches. So, how might we be honest in the most effective way?

We Needn’t Choose Dishonesty or Isolation

The most valuable and powerful honesty is that which materially and directly addresses ideas, questions, and situations, but rarely people. This means placing our focus on speaking truth to what a person specifically asks, believes, or does, rather than who they are.

One effective way of doing this is to take a page out of coaching, and do what I call “setting the table” prior to speaking. Ask: “what sort of feedback are you most open to, and what would be most helpful for you?” This allows others to invite your feedback rather than being confronted by honesty that they are not prepared for.

In cases where you have to speak truth that others may not be ready to hear, you can use the same technique in an alternative way. You might say: “I need to say a few things about some of the ideas expressed here. My hope is that by sharing my honest thoughts, it might create a space for others to do the same so we can have a more productive dialogue.”

Honesty, when paired with kindness and care, is remarkably powerful while also significantly more difficult to cast as objectionable.

Critical Truth

If you’ve ever worked for a leader who wasn’t straight with you, you know what it feels like. The way information trickles down in incomplete pieces. The way feedback gets softened until it means nothing. The way bad news gets managed instead of addressed.

And you probably also know that once you sense someone is managing you instead of being honest with you, the trust starts to go. Not all at once –– usually slowly. But it goes.

In The Lovable Leader, I wrote about how trust is the foundation of everything. You can’t build it without consistency, care, and the willingness to be real. Honesty is not separate from care –– it is care.

Telling someone a hard truth, delivered thoughtfully and with genuine concern for them, is one of the most respectful things you can do. It says: I think you can handle this. I think you deserve to know. I trust you enough not to manage you.

The leaders who earn real loyalty aren’t the ones who always say the right things. They’re the ones you know you’ll get the truth from.

The world doesn’t have a shortage of people who say nothing when something should be said. What we’re in short supply of are people willing to speak the truth, with care, when it matters.

The Honesty Challenge

This one asks you to look at yourself first –– because the most important honesty is often the kind we owe ourselves.

Step 1: Identify one thing you’ve been avoiding saying

It might be something you need to say to another person. A hard conversation you’ve been deferring. Feedback you’ve been softening. Something you’ve disagreed with but kept quiet about.

Or it might be something you need to say to yourself. A pattern you’ve been excusing. A decision you already know you need to make. A truth about your situation that you’ve been managing around rather than looking at directly.

Just name it. You don’t have to say it yet. Start by acknowledging it exists.

Step 2: Say it –– with care, not cruelty

Honesty is not a license to be harsh. It’s not a justification for unloading everything you’ve been holding back without regard for how it lands. People who use the term “brutal honesty” are often just looking for cover to avoid thinking about the words they say.

What we’re after is the kind of truth-telling that’s in service of something –– of a relationship, of growth, of clarity. It can be direct and still be kind. It can be hard to hear and still be delivered with love.

Say what needs to be said. Say it like you care about the person you’re saying it to –– including yourself.

Step 3: Notice what shifts

After you do it, pay attention. Not just to how the other person responds, but to how you feel having said it.

In my experience, the things we’re most afraid to say tend to be the things that, once said, we immediately wish we’d said sooner.

There’s a weight that comes off. A clarity that replaces the low-level tension of carrying something unsaid.

That’s not always the case. Sometimes honesty creates real friction before it creates resolution. But even that friction tends to be more honest than the false peace of avoiding it altogether.

Why This Matters

We cannot fix what we won’t name.

Every challenge we’ve worked through in this series –– responsibility, protection, sacrifice, resilience, courage, empathy, compassion, vulnerability –– every single one of them requires honesty to function. You can’t be truly responsible without being honest about what you’re responsible for. You can’t be truly courageous without being honest about what you’re afraid of. You can’t build real connection through vulnerability if you’re not willing to fill that openness with truth.

Honesty is the thread running through all of it.

We are living in a moment that desperately needs more people willing to say true things. To name what’s actually happening. To resist the pull toward comfortable silence and managed impressions. The world doesn’t get better because we got better at pretending.

Say the thing. Say it with care.

Say it because you believe that truth –– even when it’s hard –– is one of the most heroic things you can offer.

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