What if the bravest thing you could do for a colleague—and a patient—was to tell the truth with love? That’s the heartbeat of this conversation on radical candor in nursing: a clear, compassionate approach to feedback that protects patients, strengthens teams, and helps each of us grow without shame. We open with the lioness—loyalty, protection, purpose—and follow that thread into the realities of modern care: defensiveness, burnout, and the pressure to be perfect. Then we go deeper, exploring the difference between identity and performance, and how leaders can make honesty feel safe, not sharp.
Rose shares how small, “boring” tasks carry life-size meaning when we explain the why. A simple whiteboard becomes a lifeline for communication, orientation, and dignity. Failure becomes normal when we admit what we’ve all stumbled on, from EKG tests to hectic handoffs. And calling becomes clearer when we match people to their soil—ER, ICU, oncology, home health, education—rather than judging a fish for not flying. We also challenge the habit of plucking star bedside nurses into leadership without development, replacing urgency with deliberate growth to protect both people and culture.
You’ll hear a pivotal story: a charge nurse asking a specialist to leave after undermining an ER physician in front of a frightened patient. It’s a line in the sand that puts trust first and models what psychological safety looks like in real time. We wrap with kintsugi, the art of mending with gold, as a way to see our careers and our teams—broken in places, yes, but made stronger and more beautiful by the seams of hard-won truth.
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