Handling criticism
If you are a person who leads others in pursuit of a goal, you are going to be exposed to criticism. This is a fact of life and part of the job. Criticism is a stressor and how you react to it says a lot about you and the quality of your leadership. The criticisms we expect and are somewhat prepared for are normally not a big deal. It’s the criticism we believe we don’t deserve and don’t expect, that often affect us the most. You may feel you don’t deserve it because you are being held accountable for something beyond your control. You may think the critic isn’t fit to comment on your work. You may believe your critics are breaking your trust and not supporting you. You may swear this is the first time anyone has ever criticized you for this thing
Even though you believe it’s beyond your control, your board is blaming you for a declining metric
Despite the fact that you went to MIT and wrote a book on design, your customer insists on lecturing you on your product decisions
You put hundreds of hours into making a decision but your team is now expressing a lack of confidence
You always saw yourself as a great, well liked, leader and then you are told that you need to work on your people skills
Reacting to painful feedback
Stuff like this stings because it doesn't fit with your view of reality. It can feel unfair or even offensive in the face of the effort you put into your work. Or perhaps the feedback creates conflict you are simply not prepared to take on right now. Irrespective of how you feel, how you handle it matters. The way I see it, there are three types of responses to criticism:
1 - Subordinate: Abandon your view and quickly accept the feedback as your new reality - prevent any conflict before it affects you.
2 - Retaliate: defend, debase, strike back or even shame your critics in the moment - make them go away.
3 - Process: Internalize the feedback and try to assess what parts are true and therefore possibly useful in the pursuit of your goals - use it to your advantage.
Of these three, most folks would agree that processing sounds like the most productive and best way to handle critical feedback. But it can be inconvenient, hard to do and downright painful. People providing critical feedback, often expect you to answer in the moment. You may even find a critic gets upset if you don’t have a super clear position right away. This makes it difficult to say, “can I get back to you on that?” and not look like you are shying away. However, assuming the critic is not irrationally out to get you, there is usually some basis for their point of view. That point of view can be valid independent where it comes from. It’s almost always worth processing criticism, even if you don’t agree and even if you decide to ignore it in the end.
Subordinating or retaliating share a quality in that they are pretty much the opposite of processing. These do provide a way for you to respond to the criticism in the moment, and that can be effective at times; but also short lived. The problem with subordinating or retaliating, is that people who do it are often are trying to avoid an issue. For some, it may be even be an unconscious defense mechanism to help maintain self-esteem. A leader dealing with critical feedback this way may be exposing an insecurity or hot button for everyone to see. And that, can disappoint the people who rely on that leader.
The people I admire the most, deal with criticism very well. They have strong points of view solidly grounded in reality, yet they usually find a way to process criticism. They deftly take it offline, dissect it, harvest any useful insights or thoughts, then use those kernels to improve how they think. They make room for themselves to do this without appearing weak or uncertain and almost always win more respect in the end. It’s amazing to watch when you see it done well.
Impression, Sunrise, Claude Monet 1872
The Impressionists, in general, were not very popular with the critics. The term “Impressionism”, the art movement that Claude Monet was part of, was actually coined by an art critic Louis Leroy, who was trying to criticize Monet’s works. “A preliminary drawing for a wallpaper pattern is more finished than this seascape,” he wrote in this very sarcastic review in Le Charivari, a French magazine.
