How to Handle Public Criticism from Employees
| As a leader, all eyes are on you. Sometimes that attention will be positive—but when things go badly, not so much. If you’re facing criticism from your employees, what’s the best way to respond? Here are some strategies that can help when you’re in the (public) eye of the storm. * Accept that it’s part of the job. Given the number of decisions you make each week, you’ll inevitably get things wrong and disappoint people from time to time. If you focus too much on the failures, you’ll risk losing confidence, clouding your judgment in the future. * Don’t focus on fairness. Rather than focusing on whether or not you deserve the blame, focus instead on solving the problem, responding to anyone who’s been harmed, and learning from what happened. * Set the record straight with facts, not emotions.Defensiveness will only fuel people’s derision. If there’s inaccurate information feeding the frenzied reactions, do what you can to replace it with facts. * Be humble, transparent, and open-minded. Ask yourself what lessons you can learn from the experience. Do you need to lead differently? Have you made unfounded assumptions? Look closely enough, and you’ll find important insights. * Take action and report back. Commit to a new direction, clarifying what you’ll change and how you’ll avoid repeating the problem—and update your team on progress over time. |
| This tip is adapted from “How Leaders Should Handle Public Criticism,” by Ron Carucci |
