When Jony asked Steve to soften his critique "because I care about the team," Steve reframed it instantly: caring how the team felt about *him* was vanity, not care for the work.

Steve's test for integrity in a leader: do you hold the work up as the most important thing, or do you hold up how you are perceived by other people?

Jony's reaction — "I was terribly cross because I knew he was right" — is the tell. The critiques that sting most are usually the accurate ones.

Softening feedback to protect a team can be a disguised form of self-protection. The kind thing to the work is often the hard thing to say.