Radical Candor doesn't travel.

The San Francisco leadership canon treats direct, depersonalised feedback as a universal good. I imported it wholesale and expected it to work.

It misfired. In the West African teams I lead, trust isn't assumed at the start of a conversation — it's built relationally, over time, through rituals the books never mention. Feedback that reads as refreshingly "candid" in San Francisco can land as a breach of that trust here.

Management advice ships with invisible cultural defaults. Before you adopt a Western playbook, ask what it assumes about trust — and whether that assumption holds where your team actually lives.