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Of course people can. The question is whether they will.

The idea that people will use trend de jure to justify whatever bad behaviors they already exhibit while not putting any actual effort into self-improvement is, I feel, fairly uncontroversial.

Of course, there's the flip side to this; you can offer constructive criticism to someone without being a dick and they can still take it personally. Some people just can't take any criticism.

Bingo. People need to be able to both offer and receive criticism without involving their ego. Both of these are hard, but i think the latter is considerably harder.

You're right, but only as long as mutual candor between employees and management is actively encouraged and, at least to some degree, protected.