How Leaders Should Handle Criticism

Being criticized is always difficult to take in. It makes us feel bad and we are left demoralized at times. It can ruin our day and even possibly ruin relationships. As leaders, we can’t react to criticism irrationally. There are expectations on how leaders needs to conduct themselves. Even in a difficult situation as taking criticism. How leaders should be handling criticism is very important. It sets the tone for the team and the team culture.

Whenever we are criticized, there are lots of thoughts and emotions going through our minds. If we don’t learn to understand those thoughts, we may react irrationally. Not understanding our emotions can cause us to react poorly and unprofessionally. Here are some thoughts and emotions we may experience when being criticized.

• Defensive – It’s very common that the very first reaction to being criticized is being defensive. Without hearing the criticism completely, we immediately go into defense mode and start justifying ourselves. We don’t even take the time to process the criticism before simply rejecting it.
  
  
• Hurt – Being criticized for our work or our decision is hurtful. Especially if we felt like we put all our efforts and abilities into our work. Being judge and criticized poorly for your best effort is understandably very hurtful.
  
  
• Anger – Another emotion that is often felt when receiving criticism is anger. How dare someone criticize us for the work we do or the decisions we make. They don’t understand the difficulties and challenges we have to face. So they don’t have the right to criticize us.
  
  
• Depressed – After working so hard on something that you feel good about, you’d hope to get some recognition for the effort you’ve put in. But instead of getting praises for a job well done, you get criticized. That chain of event can easily send anyone into a state of depression.

Understanding our emotion is just the first step. Next is what to do about it. How should we, as leaders, deal with criticism? Below are suggestions for you to reference when encountering a situation where you’re facing criticism.

1. Don’t react – As discussed earlier, the first and most common instinct when getting criticized is to react and get defensive. We put ourselves in a defensive posture and we deny and dispute. Although it is difficult to fight these urges, we must resist from reacting and take a step back. Take a moment to process it before anything else.
   
   
2. Who’s giving the critiques? – Before processing on the critiques itself, take some time to think about who’s criticizing you. Is it your superior who wants to help you improve? Is it one of your team member who just wants to be part of the improvement process? Or could it be someone who has vindictive agendas. Knowing the source and intent of the critiques will help better guide you to a more appropriate response.
   
   
3. Be honest – Instead of taking the defensive posture right away, take a moment to truly listen to the critiques. Regardless of the source and intent, does the critiques makes sense? Put aside the person give the critiques, if the comments are true and valid, then take them seriously.
   
   
4. Lessons to learn – If you’ve determined that the critiques you’ve received are valid, then take it seriously and take it to heart. Make it a lesson learned and allow yourself to improve and become better.
   
   
5. Give thanks – Regardless of who gave you the critiques and what their intentions are, you should thank them for their comments. If the source is someone with good intent, then they deserve to be thank for their honesty. It’s not easy giving critiques and to face you. So they truly deserve your appreciation. And even if the source are ill intent, you should say thank you anyways. Don’t let someone who is out to do you harm in any way to pull you down to their level. Be better than that and you’ll always come out ahead.

It’s never easy to be criticized. Especially when we know that the criticism is coming from a bad source. To understand more about why others give criticism with bad intent, you can read about it here. You must do is to maintain composure and control your emotions. First, understand your emotions. Then process them appropriately and accordingly.

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