How to Respond to Criticism

Takeaways

Learn how maintaining integrity can be the most effective response to criticism. Discover the power of leading with resilience and respect, even in the face of adversity.

It was a chaotic start to the biggest leadership role yet in my career.

During the first week at a large organization, I uncovered that a vice president who had served the organization for many years had been involved in an unethical and illegal theft of the organization’s intellectual property, transferring it to another company in which he had set himself up as President. If that wasn’t bad enough, his elaborate scheme had involved several high-profile national leaders with significant audiences that the organization depended on for partnerships. There were even a few board members and other staff that had participated, many of them unwittingly.

It was a really bad start to a new role. Unbelievably bad.

I had no choice but to let the vice president go. But I had a big choice on how much I should share publicly about what he had done and who else had been involved. Because of the high-profile nature of his accomplices, I was advised that if I shared openly, the story would likely become national news, which would not just be awful for them, it would be awful for everyone at the organization. I was also advised that if I did not share the full story of what happened, it would likely result in tremendous blowback on me as a new leader. I would be framed as a young, careless leader, making unexplainably poor decisions.

Feeling that was the better of the two alternatives, I kept the truth to our board and senior leaders, protecting our organization, its mission, and its staff, even though it also protected those guilty of some wildly unethical behavior.

But navigating the blowback was much harder than I anticipated. While the story was front page local news, it thankfully didn’t spread any wider. However, I was shocked by the vicious campaign of criticism by this unethical leader and his comrades. Didn’t they realize I was protecting them?  Didn’t they see that I could share publicly all of the incontrovertible facts of their illicit activities and not only ruin them but possibly land them in jail, effectively ending their careers? I was stunned.

I so wanted to silence my critics that I started to reconsider my decision not to go public. Even though I would be airing the dirty laundry of an organization I barely knew, I just felt sure everyone would see it my way if they heard the truth. Knowing I needed a trusted advisor, I had lunch with a board member who I connected with during the hiring process and who had been very helpful through that tumultuous first week. He patiently listened as I whined and ranted about how vocally some had been. Even some who knew the truth, because they had been involved in the unethical behavior themselves. I said I wanted justice. I said I wanted to be vindicated. I said I wanted the truth to triumph. But he could see right through me. I wanted to be liked.

After I had exhausted my litany of frustrations, he gave me some of the best advice of my career. A nugget of truth from this seasoned veteran leader I have shared many times since with friends and clients. He paused for dramatic effect leveling his gaze at me across his salad and slowly said, “Success is the best response to critique.”

It hit me like a ton of bricks. It was like time stood still for a moment as the weight of carrying this need to defend myself was lifted. My blood pressure dropped 20 points, my pulse slackened and I started to breathe easier.  Birds in the vicinity started to sing again.

I was so focused on defending my reputation and my lofty ideals of truth and my need to have justice happen RIGHT NOW, that I was already drifting in leading the organization forward. And I hadn’t even been there a full two weeks!  More importantly, I was drifting in who I wanted to be as a human being and as a leader.

As hard as it is, sometimes doing what is best for the organization you lead, means doing things that are not best for you in the short term. Tough decisions may mean that you are not liked, even misunderstood, and that will be uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable for all of us.

My wise board member continued, “Just focus on making this organization wildly successful over the next few years, and no one will remember this moment that has you so frustrated right now.  We knew we were handing you an organization that was in trouble financially and culturally with a huge leadership vacuum. Now we know there were also deep ethical issues with the past leadership. I’m sorry about that. But we hired you to get us beyond all of this. We didn’t hire you to point out all of our problems to everyone. We didn’t even hire you to just fix these problems. It is more than that. We hired you to take us to significant success on the other side of these problems. And if you will focus on that success, I guarantee you that three years from now, no one will still be critical of these tough decisions on your first week.”

He was so right.

The best response to the critics is to succeed. A huge part of success is not just delivering great results for the organizations we lead, success for us as leaders is also who we are in the process of producing results. Part of success is how we treat others, including our critics. A huge part of success is having the integrity to treat others with respect and kindness as we create amazing outcomes, even when we are not so certain that they deserve our kindness. We don’t choose to be kind and respectful because of who THEY are, we are kind and respectful because it is who WE are.

The organization did do very well. They are now in the top 1% of organizations in their class. Ironically, over the following years, I saw most of those critics fall prey to their unethical ways, being caught up in scandals of their own makings that sank their influence and careers.

I’m so grateful for the wise words of an advisor and friend.