Speaking Skills

I think there is a discrepancy between my idea of speaking skills and the rest of the world. I was brought up with two main ideas of speeches and that is honesty and right speech... however it seems nowadays it is almost more important to say thing in a way that will make people happy or a "softer attitude" as it was put to me or being 圓滑... Being brought up in this country... may be it is right that I can no longer integrate into a society where making people happy is the ethos...