I've unfortunately not found this to be true. I regularly say the difficult things, sometimes ultimately productively, sometimes not; sometimes I'm successful at structuring the feedback so people don't feel "attacked", sometimes I'm not.

However, through all of that, I honestly feel I've only received the same kind of communication in return from people I've build trust with in other ways, generally through friendship of some sort.

Very interested in suggestions as to how to better translate a willingness to say the difficult things into getting other people to do it too, even to those without a preexisting personal basis of trust.