If you call mean, “mean”.
Or if you call kind, “kind”.

That is OK, and despite some discomfort in the first case, people will have the tools to decide if they want to stick around or not.

The real disaster, though, is when you call mean, “kind”.

As in.

The most important asset is our people, and then people are asked for regular overtime to keep up with management/customers/partners requests.

We embrace innovation, and then to kick off a new project people have to go through a rigid approval system.

We want to hear from you, and yet it is a machine responding the call, and before I get there I have to wait 20 minute on the line.

How we name things is important. And even more important is that we follow up to the naming with actions and practices.