[_Tev]

Maybe it is not exactly culture-specific, but most of your post definitely sounds to me like "walking on eggshells" stavros mentioned.

Tbh I agree that your citation of Linus' email was an example of not exactly productive conversation. But preventing such emotion ventillation takes effort, same as not feeling insulted when your work is criticized. And who should put in the emotional effort is imo at least partially influenced by cultural expectations.

[perching_aix]

I don't think these are mutually exclusive, and I also don't think that this is a scenario where that Key person just needed to put in effort to not feel insulted when their work was criticized, because it was them and their behavior that was criticized, not their work.

If wanting others to not say things like how they're "fucking tired of someone else or their behavior" is making them walk on eggshells, and can remain elusive to them for decades out of cultural differences, then clearly I'm taking crazy pills, because that's just about the most outlandish proposal I've ever come across.