How to get people to be honest with you
It’s a question I hear often from people, usually with an expressed feeling of bewilderment and upset.
Why didn’t they just say?…They’ve just left and I don’t understand why?
People who aren’t open and honest about their feelings often act upon their feelings and make decisions seemily out of the blue. They may leave a situation, job, friendship, group or relationship, when everyone thought things were going well. Such unexpected behaviour can cause confusion, anguish and frustration. Some may have emotional out bursts where they let their emotions build up quietly and then explode, leaving people shocked by the extreme feelings that they had no idea about. Learning to be assertive can help both sides of the honesty dynamic, and create open, authentic conversations that bring balance and satisfaction to both sides. Maybe you are the one that holds things inside, that feels anxious about being honest and open. Maybe you are the one that always seems to find people act out of the blue without any communication with you. So back to the question…
So why aren’t people honest about their thoughts and feelings?
There’s a few reasons:-
• Your own behaviour history
You train people with your previous reactions to either themselves or towards other people, that they witness and learn from. Maybe they’ve even heard stories about how you’ve previously reacted to previous situations or other people.
Solution: Learn techniques to be calm and emotionally balanced. Learn to pause before reacting. Cultivate a new word of mouth about your behaviour. Do work on how your cues make you appear to be on the outside.
• People’s previous experience of behaviour
People have learnt from the previous reactions of others and from their experience of interacting with people and being honest. They may have come from a background where they have been the subject of aggressive behaviour or they may be naturally nervous, timid or over cautious. Either way they’ve learnt to keep quiet and appease others, to keep the peace, to keep safe and generally avoid challenges.
Solution: All you can do with this is to reassure others who may be nervous, to help build their confidence and create a relationship of trust.
• Empathy for the feelings of others
They may perceive you as a nice but timid person or someone who is sensitive. They may see you as someone who is delicate emotionally or who has an obvious negative drawback such as a handicap or other ‘weakness’. They want to protect your feelings and think their honest opinion will hurt your feelings. You’ll be upset, crushed or devastated. No one wants to feel like a horrible person by saying someone is fat, ugly or stupid for example. Nice people are kind and tell polite lies.
Solution: Build you own confidence and learn to become someone who is resilient and strong. Be open about your weaknesses and how you feel about them.
• Politeness / Formality
Maybe they don’t feel that they know you that well and don’t feel that being open and honest (maybe ruffling some feathers) is appropriate, so they give you a neutral, appeasing response. They may not feel passionate enough about a situation to get involved with being honest or risk disrupting relationships within a group.
Solution: Build your charisma skills and rapport with others you work with, or have relationships with. Build skills of warmth, trust and openness. Ask questions and don’t punish or challenge answers that are contrary to what you believe or that may be critical.
Previous negative reactions to honesty that hold people back from expression could be:-
• Emotional volatility
Those who have angry outbursts or domineering characters often find people are not honest with them, until decision and actions are made and it’s too late. Anyone who also uses the next four points with little provocation is also seen as emotionally volatile.
Solution: Learn to be calm and emotionally balanced, don’t punish people aggressively or passively. Learn to be confident and open and resist using manipulative techniques to get responses that you want.
• Punishment & revenge
There are various aggressive and passive ways to punish someone. Passive ways of punishment for honesty that is rejected, are often subtle enough to be effective, but deniable / excusable / justifiable to get away with. People may:-
Remove a favour or benefit that they usually provided.
Issue a negative boundary or punishment that they normally let you get away with.
Issue an undeserved negative eg. Betray a confidence or embarrass you ‘as a joke’
Cool their relationship with you – swap out your place for another, by spending time with another person instead of you.
Be awkward with you or unusually formal / cool / aloof. They may go somewhere alone, when they’d usually ask you along.
Socially isolate you from a group by lack of an invitation or by controlling the group to ignore you.
Solution: Don’t punish people, overtly or passively for criticism or opposition to your ideas. Learn to be assertive and take criticism on the chin.
• Uses F.O.G.U.S.
There are five tactics for manipulating people in a passive way that can make it seem like someone is being ‘fair’, when they are actually trying to dissuade other people from being honest and challenging them.
Fear – using direct threats or volatile behaviour to make sure that people know there will be a dramatic response to being upset. People learn to lie and tell them what they want to hear.
Obligation – using the idea that someone is owed something back as a moral duty or through giving with the expectation that they will get back in return. People are made to feel that they should agree rather than be honest.
Guilt – the idea that a negative consequence (or hurt feelings) will happen to someone due to your choices or behaviour (or lack of them). Making out that you aren’t trying hard enough. People are made to feel guilty for being honest.
Unworthiness – making out that your honest opinion is wrong and that you don’t deserve something or aren’t qualified enough to judge, ask or challenge. People learn that they aren’t worthy enough to put out an honest opinion.
Shaming – pointing out that by expecting something you are a bad person (greedy, cheeky, rude) or that you are undeserving of what you expect (lazy, entitled). People learn not to be honest, else they are made to feel ashamed.
Solution: Don’t use manipulative tactics to make people feel wrong or bad for expressing their honest opinion, no matter how much you are offended or disagree.
• Invalidates and asks for justification
When someone pushes others to justify and defend their expressions, choices, preferences, values, decisions, views or feelings, people stop being honest to avoid the defence effort. Especially when someone finds ways to invalidate their reasoning or push their own opinion on them. It can make people feel that when they are honest with you, they are now on trial arguing their case. If someone always asks people to justify why, rather than accept their views and work with them, it encouraged people to be more insular with what they say to others. Winning a war of words can feel satisfying but it can encourage people in the future to keep quiet how their true thoughts and feelings.
Solution: Don’t turn a discussion about thoughts, opinions and feelings, especially when they are opposing, into a court case. It’s ok to use assertiveness enquiry techniques to find more information as to why they feel this way, but don’t turn it into an interrogation or try and push your ideas on to them or get them to justify themselves.
• Never see the other side’s view
These types of behaviours put off others from being honest…
Someone who sticks rigidly to rules and issues punishments regardless of reasons or is non-compassionate, un-understanding or non-cooperative with others.
Those who stick with their opinion and believe they are right without exploring the position that others are coming from.
Who refuses to co-ordinate with others or negotiate with them.
Solution: Think about the others person’s views, their lifestyle, commitments, responsibility’s, financial foundations, physical or mental health. What are their skills? What time do they have? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Are you asking too much? What can you do to gain some of what you want, so that both sides can be happy getting some of what they want? Are the strict rules too much for them at this moment in time?
So next time you find yourself struggling to understand why others aren’t being honest with you, read through these points are reflect how you may be stopping people from expressing themselves and what you can do to encourage openness.