Shelly Gorman: Giving Feedback; How To Be Honest Without Being Hurtful (https://medium.com/authority-magazine/shelly-gorman-giving-feedback-how-to-be-honest-without-being-hurtful-a6e9c885d6ce)

Be clear, not performatively nice.
Nice becomes toxic when it leads to emotional suppression. Say what needs to be said — clarity is a form of kindness.

Asa part of our series about “How To Give Honest Feedback without Being Hurtful”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Shelly Gorman. Channeling her passion for helping to empower personal transformational journeys, Founder and Executive Coach Shelly Gorman helps individuals to radically accept themselves and cultivate their best lives. As an established and influential executive coach, Shelly previously held leadership roles across North America for leading global coaching companies and possesses numerous gifts from the universe including channeling and mediumship.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

Ihave been an executive coach and leader for over 15+ years and embarked on a new voyage as the Founder of a spiritual wellness revolution after living through my own dramatic personal transformation at 50. There are no words to describe just how many lessons that I have learned in my transformational healing journey over the last two years but you can see some of that in the YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@globaldivinealchemy. The newfound freedom that the personal transformation brought, in addition to realizing that every single one of my 10k+ clients were carrying their own self-limiting boulders, created my new mission to help individuals embrace their truest authentic selves and follow their truest dreams.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

I am totally dedicated to starting a Transmutation Revolution — beginning by putting my own face and private story out into the world. By sharing my healing journey without personal or professional masks, I wanted others to see, with their own eyes, that I deeply understand the complexity and pain of transformation.

My story isn’t for the faint of heart, but it was important to vulnerably showcase the emotional and spiritual boulders I’ve overcome. I wanted to provide a new path to healing — one rooted in spiritual wellness and radical self-acceptance. This company exists to inspire, challenge, grow, evolve, and uplift — while empowering individuals to be their own guru. We focus on helping people show up boldly, courageously, and authentically in the world.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

The most interesting story is the one that launched everything: my accidental deep dive into spiritual gifts. I had no intention of believing in any of it — in fact, I was trying to disprove it. But when I started delivering messages during my spiritual training with such specific detail about strangers’ private lives, there was no longer room for denial.

That moment — when my skepticism was dismantled by the truth of what was coming through — completely altered the course of my life. It made me laugh (eventually) at how stubborn I had been, and it taught me to trust what I feel and experience, even when I can’t logically explain it. It was like trying to deny gravity until you fall — experience really is the greatest teacher.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I addressed this a little bit with your last question, but let me add some additional color and context. When I began exploring my spiritual gifts, I was utterly befuddled. Although I had always been intuitive and adept at reading people, I knew very little about spirituality beyond that. As I started encountering messages and insights, I lacked any frame of reference and struggled to understand what was happening. They don’t come with a normal roadmap or checklist. Driven by skepticism, I turned to extensive googling, trying to rationalize my experiences as mere mental quirks rather than genuine spiritual phenomena. Determined to debunk it, I enrolled in one of the top global schools, convinced that this would prove it all to be nonsense.

But as soon as I began the classes and started reading people within the course, my skepticism was quickly dismantled. I was delivering messages filled with specific details about strangers’ private lives — details I had no way of knowing. It was a humbling experience, one that left me in awe and made it impossible to deny the reality of spiritual gifts. Looking back, I can’t help but laugh at my stubbornness to accept it from the beginning. It was a powerful lesson in seeing beyond the limits of my own perception, along with making your own journey harder than it needs to be. It’s like trying to believe in gravity without ever touching or seeing it — sometimes, experiencing it firsthand is the only way to truly understand.

What advice would you give to other CEOs and business leaders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

To help employees truly thrive and avoid burnout, leaders must stop enabling dysfunction through contrived performance metrics and start modeling authentic truth. Burnout stems not just from workload, but from emotional disconnection, unclear expectations, and a lack of psychological safety. Leaders must understand that people-pleasing isn’t kind — it’s the suppression of self in exchange for short-term harmony, which over time breeds resentment and disengagement.

Instead, CEOs should shift the cultural standard from “nice” to “compassionate truth.” That means building environments where clarity, directness, and courageous conversations at all levels are the norm. When you empower your teams to speak up, push back, and show up fully, you don’t just prevent burnout — you create a culture of accountability, resilience, growth, and innovation.

By being radically authentic and modeling truth over contrived performance, leaders give permission for others to do the same — and that’s where real thriving begins.

How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?

Leadership is about embodying your most authentic self while navigating challenges with courage, purpose, compassion, and ethics. Exceptional leaders stand apart because they take a stand — even in the face of adversity. They reject pressure to conform and embrace their unique identities, thoughts, and innovations with integrity. Leadership includes dualities: being strong and vulnerable, action-oriented and reflective. Exceptional leaders operate in alignment with truth and inspire others to do the same.

In my work, I often talk about how to release and relieve stress. As a busy leader, what do you do to prepare your mind and body before a stressful or high stakes meeting, talk, or decision? Can you share a story or some examples?

Before any high-stakes meeting, talk, or decision, I ground myself by returning to alignment with my inner truth. Stress, for me, often comes when I’m tempted to perform — to wear a mask or cater to an external expectation. So my first step is always to strip away the noise and reconnect with my authentic self.

That might mean taking a moment of silence, closing my eyes to feel what’s happening in my body, or literally putting my hand on my heart to center myself. I ask: What is my gut telling me? Am I being led by fear, ego, or am I aligned with purpose? That clarity makes all the difference.

One of the most powerful practices I use is trusting my intuitive knowing — something I used to resist deeply. I now rely daily on receiving clear, specific insights I can’t explain logically- I learned to stop dismissing what I feel and instead allow it to guide me. That same groundedness is what I carry into stressful moments now — not trying to control the outcome, but anchoring in truth.

Stress can’t survive in the presence of clarity, alignment, and self-trust. That’s my practice — and my reminder — every single time.

Ok, let’s jump to the core of our interview. Can you briefly tell our readers about your experience with managing a team and giving feedback?

Absolutely. My leadership style centers around transformational growth, both individually and collectively. I’ve managed diverse teams and worked with many executive leaders over the years, and what I’ve found is that the most effective feedback comes from a place of radical honesty, balanced with empathy. I encourage team members to “radically accept their ish” — which, yes, includes their strengths and their growth areas. This phrase has become a bit of a mantra in my leadership journey. When people can accept who they are — flaws and all — they can begin to transform authentically.

Managing a team, for me, is about cultivating an environment where feedback isn’t feared, but welcomed as fuel for personal and professional evolution. It’s about disrupting comfort zones for the sake of growth — but doing so in a way that supports, not shames. That kind of culture creates powerful ripple effects, both within the team and in the work we put out into the world.

This might seem intuitive but it will be constructive to spell it out. Can you share with us a few reasons why giving honest and direct feedback is essential to being an effective leader?

Feedback is not about being nice — it’s about being clear. When you avoid direct communication, you become complicit in enabling and reinforcing bad behavior. In organizations, this can be detrimental to team dynamics and drive lower standards. Conflict, when navigated with clarity and compassion, isn’t inherently bad — it stimulates growth and innovation. Leaders who give honest feedback enable others to rise and evolve.

Performative niceness leads to emotional suppression and false connection. When you perform niceness, you teach others to engage with a mask, not your authentic self. That creates imbalance and stunts growth — both yours and theirs. Giving honest feedback is a form of courageous leadership. It’s how you honor others with your truth and allow them the opportunity to respond with their own.