CHAPTER 5
Loving Harsh Critics
Get a friend to tell you your faults, or better
still, welcome an enemy who will watch you
keenly and sting you savagely. What a blessing
such an irritating critic will be to a wise man.
CHARLES HADDON SPURGEONAll leaders get criticized. It’s their response to criticism that sets
them apart.
Our natural reactions to criticism include emotions ranging
from woundedness and indignation to desire for revenge.
Deserved or undeserved, inane or thoughtful, criticisms hurt. We
may realize they’re inevitable, but when they hit, we feel it. One
researcher on a broad range of leadership dynamics declared,
“Emotions rule!”
Today our culture conditions us to amplify our reactive emo-
tions, to use our verbal weapons against others. News and talk
shows use lively invective. Electronic games invite us to spend
hours stalking the enemy, reacting instantly to menacing move-
ments, skillfully shooting or crushing—with vivid, bloody
results—our “enemies.”
Sitcoms are often games of Stick in the Verbal Knife—duels
of ridicule and counterridicule. In politics, the more verbal jabs
and vitriol, the livelier the coverage. Revenge movies depict out-
rageous acts that must be avenged, then with explosive action,
deliver the message: Revenge is sweet.