Directness can be taken to imply trustworthiness, as the author seems to be doing. But it can just as easily be taken as a sign of ineptitude, technical-mindedness, boorishness, courage, immaturity, confidence, impatience, or a dozen other attributes depending on context and participants.

For that reason, reading this is like reading a blog on poker strategies from someone who is only vaguely aware there are different suits in the deck. It's of course fine to ask others to play as if all the cards are diamonds, which is what I take this as. But the way it is written does strongly imply the author has a hard time imagining what the other suits could be for, or how an awareness of them could change their perception of card games.

Honestly, it's refreshing to imagine the lack of "suits" in this sense-- e.g., spending the day with a group of people who not only all claim to couple directness with trustworthiness, but who all earnestly deliver on that claim. I also get the sense that the author is probably not "sticky" in their judgments of others-- perhaps they'd initially judge me as inconsiderate for using niceties but quickly redefine me as trustworthy once I stopped using them.

I would like to know from the author: in the real world, are you aware of the risks of directness without a priori trust or full knowledge of someone else's internal state? I mean, for every one of you, there are probably several dozen people who claim to want unadorned directness but (perhaps unwittingly) end up resenting what they ultimately take as personal, hurtful criticism. And some number of them (again, perhaps unwittingly) retaliate in one way or another. And I haven't even delved into the social hierarchy of jobs-- it's a mess out there!