Amr El Selouky recently shared something that caught my attention: "The culture you build shows up in your results." Then he connected Manara’s strong start to 2026 to one value that keeps coming to mind: "tough love" - direct and continuous feedback.

He even made the rule feel refreshingly simple: if you have feedback, "Say it clearly. Say it early. Say it to the right person." And just as important, he called out the common failure modes: "No sugarcoating. No backchannels. No tip-toeing. No drama."

I want to expand on what Amr is pointing to, because this is one of those leadership ideas that sounds obvious, feels uncomfortable in practice, and yet explains a lot of performance outcomes. Tough love is not about being harsh. It is about building a system where truth moves faster than politics, and learning moves faster than ego.

Why "tough love" shows up in results

Culture is not posters, perks, or values docs. Culture is what happens when:

a deliverable is late
a decision is wrong
a teammate ships something messy
a leader misses context
tension enters the room

In those moments, teams either tell the truth quickly, or they avoid it. Avoidance is expensive. It creates rework, resentment, and quiet disengagement. Direct feedback, delivered well, is a compounding asset.

When Amr says culture shows up in results, I read it as: your norms decide your speed. If feedback is delayed, your learning loop slows down. If feedback is filtered through backchannels, trust decays. If feedback is sugarcoated, meaning gets lost and accountability blurs.

"Direct & continuous feedback" is not a personality trait. It is an operating system.

The three rules: clearly, early, to the right person

Amr’s three-line rule is powerful because it forces specificity and reduces theater. Here is what each line looks like when you put it into daily work.

1) Say it clearly

Clarity is kindness, but clarity is also a skill. Clear feedback answers:

What did you observe? (facts)
What was the impact? (why it matters)
What would you prefer next time? (a change request)

A simple template that keeps things direct without being aggressive:

"I noticed X. The impact was Y. Next time, please do Z."

Examples:

"I noticed the customer update skipped the risk section. The impact is that leadership can’t make tradeoffs. Next time, include risks and mitigations even if they are messy."
"I noticed you interrupted Sara twice. The impact is we lost her context. Next time, let her finish, then challenge the point."

Clear does not mean brutal. It means unambiguous.

2) Say it early

Most teams do not have a feedback problem. They have a timing problem.

Late feedback turns small gaps into identity-level conflicts:

Week 1: "This doc is unclear."
Week 6: "You always communicate poorly."

Early feedback keeps the conversation about the work, not the person. It also reduces the emotional load for both sides. A small correction today prevents a hard confrontation later.

A practical habit: deliver feedback within 24-72 hours while the details are still concrete. If you wait until performance reviews, you are not doing feedback, you are doing surprise.

3) Say it to the right person

This one is where a lot of cultures quietly break.

Backchannels feel safer in the moment, but they tax the organization:

the person who can actually fix it never hears it
the story mutates as it travels
bystanders are recruited into a conflict they cannot resolve

If the feedback is for a teammate, tell the teammate. If it is about a decision, tell the decision maker. If it is about a systemic issue, raise it in the forum that owns the system.

There are exceptions (harassment, discrimination, retaliation risk, power dynamics). In those cases, you escalate appropriately. But for normal work friction, route feedback to the person closest to the lever.

"No sugarcoating" does not mean no respect

Some people hear "tough love" and assume it means bluntness at all costs. That is not what Amr described. Notice his emphasis: no drama, no tip-toeing, no backchannels. Those are about reducing noise, not increasing cruelty.

Respectful directness looks like:

addressing behavior, not labeling character
being specific, not sarcastic
separating urgency from anger
staying on one topic, not unloading a backlog of complaints

A good test: if your feedback requires an audience to feel powerful, it is not tough love. It is performance.

The hidden benefit: psychological safety through honesty

It may sound counterintuitive, but a consistent feedback culture can increase psychological safety.

Why? Because people stop guessing.

In low-feedback environments, employees read between lines, interpret silence as approval, then get blindsided later. In high-feedback environments, the rules are known: you will be told the truth quickly, and you are expected to do the same.

That predictability is calming. It turns feedback from a threat into normal hygiene.

The safest teams are not the ones where nobody is challenged. They are the ones where challenge is routine and fair.

What makes it hard at first (and how to make it easier)

Amr noted something important: "At the beginning it’s not easy for the giver or the receiver to get used to this." That is real. Tough love creates friction before it creates flow.

Here are the common early-stage challenges and practical fixes.

For the feedback giver: fear of conflict

Fixes:

Start with small, low-stakes feedback to build the muscle.
Ask permission: "Can I share a quick piece of feedback?" It lowers defensiveness.
Make it about shared goals: "Because we’re trying to ship faster, I want to flag something."

For the receiver: taking it personally

Fixes:

Repeat back what you heard before reacting.
Ask one clarifying question: "What would success look like next time?"
Thank them, even if you disagree, then reflect and follow up.

A line I like for receivers: "I’m going to think about that. If I see it differently, can I circle back tomorrow?" That keeps the door open without forcing instant agreement.

For leaders: inconsistency

If only some people are direct, directness can feel like an attack. Leaders need to set norms and model them.

Practical leader moves:

Give feedback in public only when it is praise or neutral process correction. Save sensitive critique for private.
Explicitly reward candor: "Good catch, thanks for saying it early."
Run a short retro after major work: "What should we start, stop, continue?"

Turning tough love into a repeatable practice

If you want the benefits Amr is describing, treat feedback like a workflow, not a mood.

Lightweight rituals that work

Weekly 1:1s with a dedicated 5-minute feedback slot.
Post-project retros with two rules: be specific, propose a change.
"Fast feedback" DMs: one observation, one impact, one request.

A simple team agreement

Write it down and review it quarterly:

We give feedback within 72 hours.
We address the person who can act.
We focus on behaviors and outcomes.
We assume positive intent, but we do not avoid hard truths.

This is the kind of clarity that makes a culture scalable, especially as teams grow and hire quickly.

A quick note on why this resonates beyond leadership

One reason posts like Amr’s perform well as LinkedIn content (and why some become viral posts) is that they name a tension many people feel but rarely articulate: we want kindness, and we also want momentum. Tough love is a practical bridge.

And for anyone thinking about content strategy, there is a lesson here too: the most shareable leadership ideas are often short, specific operating principles you can actually test on Monday.

Closing thought

Amr El Selouky’s point is not that feedback should be constant critique. It is that organizations win when truth is normal, timely, and routed correctly. "Say it clearly. Say it early. Say it to the right person" is a standard that reduces politics and increases learning.

If you build that norm deliberately, the payoff is not just better communication. It is faster iteration, stronger trust, and results that look "sudden" from the outside - but are really the compound effect of honest conversations.

This blog post expands on a viral LinkedIn post by Amr El Selouky, CEO at Manara (YC W21) | MENA Growth & Expansions Leader Driving Tech Scaleups. View the original LinkedIn post →