For about ten years, if you were in a meeting with me, you would have seen someone who was agreeable, collaborative, easy to work with. In my 360 feedback they even called me 'passive'.
I was 25 the first time I got laid off. New management had come in, the company was headed somewhere different, and in one of the early all-hands Q&As, I asked a lot of questions. I had opinions that didn't match where leadership was taking things and I said them out loud.
And then a few weeks later, I was gone. A “new direction” they said. My 41-year-old brain can now see that those things are correlated, but maybe not causation. But my 25-year-old self connected them and seeded a 10-year belief that to be candid was risky. Candor isn't safe. Diplomacy is how you survive in corporate America.
Like most beliefs, it didn't announce itself and say, “hey! a self-limiting belief just got created!” No, it just started running quietly in the background of my mind. In meetings with leadership, I'd have more to say and I'd hold it. In conversations where I disagreed, I'd soften it until it barely counted as a disagreement. I thought I was being professional. Mature. Reading the room. What I didn't know was that I had tipped so far into diplomacy that I'd lost access to my own voice.
What people saw above the waterline: Jill is agreeable. Jill won't challenge. Jill is easy to work with.
What was happening beneath it: A decade-old belief, formed in a single painful moment, quietly deciding how I would show up in every room.
In 2019, I was working with an executive coach named Cara Wilson. I told her what I'd noticed about myself. That I had more to say in rooms than I was saying. That I was holding back. That I could feel this jolt in my body to say more, and then anxiety would plague me. That I didn't totally understand why, or what to do about it. She, in a very Cara way, said: "In part, this isn't a problem to solve. It's a polarity to manage."
Me: "Say what?"
Polarity: "A polarity is a pair of interdependent positive or neutral opposites. Both are strengths or values needed over time for a healthy, thriving self or organizational system."
In more simple terms…my diplomacy wasn't a problem to fix. It was a strength being overused. So, what other strength did I need to bring in to balance this strength? I NEEDED candor. If I wanted to show up as an effective communicator, leader, and human, I needed both candor AND diplomacy.
So let’s break this down:
When you over-index on diplomacy, you become agreeable to a fault. People often don't know where you stand. Relationships feel smooth but stay shallow. You play it safe.
When you over-index on candor, you can be perceived as harsh. You can damage trust. You can miss how things land.
The goal isn't to pick a side. The goal is to hold both, moving between both as the moment requires, with enough self-awareness to notice when you've tipped too far in either direction.
For me, the work was learning to bring in candor when I noticed myself holding back. When there was silence I was wanting to fill, to speak up and fill it. To watch when I was reaching for diplomacy out of fear rather than choice. Those are not the same thing. One is skillful. The other is a 25-year-old trying to stay safe. The concept of polarity management* gave me language and perspective that helped me hold the complexity of what I was experiencing.
This is what human-to-human skill building actually looks like in practice. Helping someone enhances their strengths, not by abandoning what they are good at, but by learning to hold another strength too.
Here's the question I'll leave you with:
Where in your life are you treating a polarity like a problem, trying to solve your way to one "right" answer when what's actually needed is the skill to hold both?
— Jill
I have spent years inside corporate leadership rooms with concepts that change how people lead and live— and I want them in more hands. My goal is to decode, demystify and democratize them. Each letter, one concept, so you can explore what might be happening beneath the surface of your conversations, your teams, and yourself.
If this resonates and you're ready to go deeper — I work with leaders one on one and with teams. I'd love to connect.
* Polarity Management framework developed by Barry Johnson. Johnson, B. (1992). Polarity Management: Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems. HRD Press.