What does the expression "you got to be cruel to be kind" mean?

Other comparable idioms:

• English: "spare the rod and spoil the child"

The phrase spare the rod and spoil the child (in which and implies a consequence) means that, if children are not punished when they do wrong, their personal development will suffer. The precise words are first found in the satirical poem Hudibras (1664), by the English writer Samuel Butler (1613-80):

If matrimony and hanging go
By dest’ny, why not whipping too?
What med’cine else can cure the fits
Of lovers, when they lose their wits?
Love is a boy by poets styl’d,
Then spare the rod, and spoil the child.

• Latin : "Qui bene amat, bene castigat" (he who loves well, chastizes well)

• The equivalent idiom frequently used by French native speakers: "Qui aime bien châtie bien".

I am not contributing anything necessarily in terms of citable material or something I can make reference to, but merely in terms of my intuition and perception of understanding of the topic.

For me, it means that there are often times where the actions you perform, and the things you say, can be misinterpreted as being negative in nature, as insulting or harsh, when in reality, the nature is just one of truth and compassion. Some people express themselves very passionately and energetically, for, and come across as yelling and being angry when really they are just speaking with the energy of knowledge and confidence, and they lose control of certain physical traits of their expression.

It's also very easy to let one's emotions and thoughts get in the way of rationally interpreting a statement and trying to learn from it when what someone is telling you sounds like it's supposed to be hurtful, from what you've learned and experienced living life.

Just my 2¢ :)

An atypical interpretation (the typical interpretation is the approved answer) might be that being morally good (or kind) has a precondition that the person must be capable of malevolence.

To expand on this idea, consider a person incapable of wrongdoing, harmless. Can such a person exercise morality? I would say no. Morality involves choosing between good and evil, and if one does not have the capacity for cruelty, one fundamentally understand cannot morality.

And so "one must be cruel to be kind".

Further expansion can be found wonderfully articulated by Dr. Jordan Peterson.

Love is what is needed to do what is for the greater good. Love and wisdom combined is the strength needed to right a situation causing initial pain but delivering somebody from much greater pain. Tough love takes more from the person because they will always appear to be the cruel one. They will feel the pain more because they are forced by love to inflict pain on the one they love for the greater good. That’s how great change can occur.