More Honesty - Less Brutality
Was thinking this weekend about people who seem to have the need to combine brutality with their honesty.  My observation is that far too many people seem to use honesty as a deliverly mechanism for their brutality.  The phrase, “I was just being honest.” is no excuse and a poor cloak for viciousness, envy or malice in any form. Our “words reveal us”.
Richard Needham said it this way, “The person who is brutally honest enjoys the brutality quite as much as the honesty. Possibly more”.
In Jim Collins book, “Good to Great” , he identified that one key characteristic of organizations that made the leap to greatness was their ability to “Confront the brutality honest facts, without leaving people feeling attacked or brutalized.” This takes a measure of skill, maturity, and wisdom that I have yet to witness in a person who commonly uses the phrase, “I was just being honest” .
That our world needs more honesty and more honest men and women than ever before is an undeniable truth. But equally true is the fact that our world needs less brutality of both the physical and verbal variety.
Honesty can guide us, inspire us and protect us… we must never demean or undermine it an attempt to put someone in their place, get even, or in any way to dress someone down.Â
If honesty is to remain the best policy, then brutality cannot be a companion policy.
Kirk Out - Honestly 
August 31st, 2009 at 10:49 am
Interestingly this morning someone sent me a youtube clip that got me chuckling a bit. Some guy wrote a song that some would think was honest but few would think was brutal. He expressed his opinion and perhaps his politics but left me laughing instead of languishing and considering instead of recovering or responding. Viewer discretion advised as it does make fun of the US governments taxing tendencies and i realize that this is no political blog… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO2eh6f5Go0
Anthony
August 31st, 2009 at 11:17 am
I have long said the trouble with being brutally honest in your interactions is in the end you were still brutal.
Thanks for reinforcing.
September 1st, 2009 at 10:08 am
Here is the best list that I can find about how we are to behave:
Patient, Kind, not jealous, not inflated, not rude, not self seeking, not quick tempered, does not brood over injury (forgiving) and rejoices with the truth (honest). Honesty is important as annotated by making this very important list, but interestingly it is not first but last.
Jay