Your rants are "honestly" hurting you

Complaining does not mean being transparent.

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Your team doesn’t need to hear your spicy takes on every leadership decision.

You might think you're being open. They think you're being unhinged.

That "honest rant" you just had in the team meeting might’ve been your real thoughts but your team might perceive it as: “Leadership is lost, and my manager is spiralling”.

And now your engineers are stuck wondering if the work they’re doing even matters.

You don’t have to like it - you still have to support it

You are not going to like every decision, but you need to know when and how to challenge a decision and when to get behind it anyway.

And no, that doesn't make you a corporate shill. That is part of your role.

Let’s say senior leadership decides to cut a feature you and your team spent a sprint building. You're frustrated. Totally fair. Maybe even furious. But you still have a choice in how you show up:

• You can walk into standup and say:
  “Senior Leadership doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing. Sorry, I know this sucks.”

• Or you can say:
  “Plans changed. This feature’s paused, and here’s why. Let’s talk through what that means and what’s next.”

Same facts. Totally different impact.

You can push back. Just not in public.

There’s a place to fight back. It's in one-on-ones with your manager. In private group chats with peers. In those rooms where the trade-offs are actually being debated and you can influence change.

Your team isn’t that room.

They might not have full context. They likely can't influence the decision. All they get is your negativity, without any control or path forward.

That’s not honest leadership. That’s you not managing your feelings and emotional reaction.

The problem with “just being honest”

We tell ourselves it’s about integrity. About keeping it real.

I want to be able to be my real self at work. If I don’t like something I need to say it.

More often than not, it’s about something else: validation. Venting. Wanting the team to say, “Yeah, you’re right. This is dumb. You’re not the problem.”

Except that’s not their job.

Your team isn’t there to make you feel better.

When you rant, what you’re really doing is offloading your discomfort onto people who can’t do anything with it.

And let’s be honest: if your engineers started trashing every design decision in public, would you call that transparency?

How to share your feedback

You don’t have to pretend everything’s great all the time. That’s not leadership either. The goal is measured honesty. Signal without spiraling.

Here’s how to do that:

1. Process before you speak

If you just heard a decision that pissed you off, don’t turn around and announce it five minutes later. Take an hour. Take a walk. Vent in your journal.

But do not default to sharing your raw, unfiltered reaction.

You’re paid to be thoughtful under pressure.

2. Share facts, not feelings

Tell your team what’s happening. Share what you know. Be clear about what’s next.

But keep your opinions in check, especially if they’re still half-baked.

You can say, “We’ll learn more next week”. You can say, “It’s frustrating to pivot this late, but I think we can pull it off”. Just don’t say, “This whole thing is stupid and I hate it”.

Even if you do.

3. Give your team what they can control

Redirect focus:

• What can we do next?

• What questions should we be asking?

• How do we protect our team’s energy and momentum?

Lead them toward action.

4. Use private channels to push back

If you truly think the decision is bad, escalate. Ask questions. Offer alternatives. But do it where it actually matters.

You won’t earn points for grandstanding in public. You will earn trust by quietly fixing broken decisions behind the scenes.

What happens when you get this wrong

When you turn every leadership choice into a rant opportunity:

• You confuse your team.

• You make them question the value of their work.

• You make yourself look unstable, disloyal, or both.

• You invite gossip, disengagement, and learned helplessness.

And when the next big change comes they’ll remember how you handled the last one. If you lost it then, why should they trust you now?

Be the calm, not the chaos

Your team needs one thing more than anything in turbulent times: a steady voice.

Not a fake-happy one. Not a doormat. Just someone who’s got their back, who filters the noise, and who brings clarity when things are messy.

That’s your job.

You can still be honest.
Just stop mistaking your venting for openness, transparency and honesty.

That’s all, folks!

See you in the next one,
~ Stephane

PS. Now this is proper Front End Honesty 😂