[Hakulyte]

"respect" and "being nice" is generally vague.

Direct people will tend to just straight out say the truth.
Indirect people may just tell you half truths in hope you get the idea and figure it out.

The former may appear like they're more harsh/not sensible.
The latter may appear like they're holding back intentions or being confusing.

There's probably other types of people, but I believe they can be classified in the above 2 groups.

If you're looking for a middle ground that would be ideal, I'd suggest looking up affirmative statements and to potentially try to integrate that your "arsenal" of ways to talk to others if you didn't already.
Definition: The term "affirmative" is a synonym of the term "positive." It indicates an attitude of acceptance or approval toward a previously expressed statement or idea. An affirmative response is sometimes referred to as an agreement.

So, 3 key elements that comes in mind:

- Talk about the topic, not the person.
- Maintain agreement
- Stay constructive

Maintaining agreement can be particularly difficult when you disagree with someone because you may feel the urgent need to correct them.
This is where communication tend to break.
The trick is to take the controversial statement that appears wrong to you and to test it out with your ideas to see what the other side has to say about it.

If you're having a conversation with someone doing this, I believe it's unlikely something goes wrong.

tl;dr: I think people who doesn't communicate with affirmative statements are likely to run into issues sooner or later with someone who doesn't see things the same way they do.