Criticism will come, rightly or wrongly. Sometimes we become defensive, overreact, go into denial, or avoid people who criticize us.
There is a better way.
1. Listen.
Criticism is never pleasant, but there is always something you can learn from it. So, take a deep breath and listen. Evaluate what is said and test it with your honest supporters. Don’t reject it just because it hurts. If it is deserved, make changes. If not deserved, move on. Listen and learn.
2. Keep critics close to you.
This is not our natural inclination. We would like to keep our critics as far away as possible. However, this is neither wise nor helpful. Bill Lawrence says, " ... we need to seek [our critics] out, tell them what we’ve heard they said, and ask them questions that will confirm their criticism and help us understand it more completely.”1
Lawrence gives these helpful steps:
- Tell them what you heard they said — be complete and specific.
- Ask them if the report is true.
- Ask them to clarify what they said.
- Ask them to help you understand the purpose of their comments.
- Ask them their reason for not coming to you. (You may find out that you do something to keep them away).
- Make sure you say everything you need to say about the report before they respond.
- Do all this without being angry or threatening.
- Interact without putting them on the spot.
- Accept denials and explanations without anger or argument.
3. Listen for echoes.
Film director Billy Wilder well said: “An audience is never wrong. An individual member of it may be an imbecile, but a thousand imbeciles together in the dark — that is critical genius.”2 Take note when you hear the same criticism repeatedly. It is something you will need to deal with.
4. Recruit a team of critics.
Put together a trusted group who will honestly act as caring critics. Organized criticism will be more constructive. It will help build up, instead of tear down. Invite organized criticism on your ministry, leadership, and character.
We will always have to deal with critics and criticism. We must listen and learn, but never allow criticism to paralyze our service to the Lord. It is easy to shout from the sidelines, but when you are in the game that’s where the real satisfaction is.
Theodore Roosevelt said it well:
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is not effort without error and shortcoming; who does actually try to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, and the great devotion and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat" (Theodore Roosevelt, Speech before the Hamilton Club, April 10,1899).
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Image • RonMoore.org
1From D. Min. class notes—The Ministry Leader, Dr. William D. Lawrence, Executive Director of the Center for Christian Leadership, Dallas Theological Seminary.
2Billy Wilder (b. 1906), U.S. film director. “Arena,” TV profile, 24 Jan. 1992, BBC2. The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations is licensed from Columbia University Press. Copyright © 1993, 1995 by Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.