15 Practical Tips for Handling Criticism

Have you ever heard the saying, “When you’re the one on the ladder, all others see is your backside?” Many times, those who are following see the leader from that perspective. Those you are leading many times do not have the same perspective on things because they are seeing things from a different position. In the early 1990s, John Maxwell helped me through his teachings to better understand how to deal with criticism as a leader. I have learned much from him and from my own leadership experiences.

Over the years, I have been criticized for things that I deserved to be criticized for—and I have been criticized for things that I didn’t deserved to be criticized for. None of us are perfect, so we will make mistakes and we will be criticized for them. Remember, Moses was criticized by his own family.

One day Miriam and Aaron were criticizing Moses because his wife was a Cushite woman, and they said, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Hasn’t he spoken through us, too?” But the Lord heard them. Immediately he summoned Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to the Tabernacle: “Come here, you three,” he commanded. So they stood before the Lord. (Now Moses was the humblest man on earth.) Then the Lord descended in the Cloud and stood at the entrance of the Tabernacle. “Aaron and Miriam, step forward,” he commanded; and they did. And the Lord said to them, “Even with a prophet, I would communicate by visions and dreams; but that is not how I communicate with my servant Moses. He is completely at home in my house! With him I speak face-to-face! And he shall see the very form of God! Why then were you not afraid to criticize him?” Then the anger of the Lord grew hot against them, and he departed. As the Cloud moved from above the Tabernacle, Miriam suddenly became white with leprosy. When Aaron saw what had happened, he cried out to Moses, “Oh, sir, do not punish us for this sin; we were fools to do such a thing. Don’t let her be as one dead, whose body is half rotted away at birth.” And Moses cried out to the Lord, “Heal her, O God, I beg you!” And the Lord said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face she would be defiled seven days. Let her be banished from the camp for seven days, and after that she can come back again.” So Miriam was excluded from the camp for seven days, and the people waited until she was brought back in before they traveled again (Numbers 12:1-15 The Living Bible).

Miriam and Aaron might have been in their rights as family to question Moses' marriage, but they took their criticism a step too far by asking, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?” In other words, they began to question whether or not Moses was the leader whom God had anointed to lead the children of Israel. God let them know that they were wrong for questioning Moses’ authority to lead.

If you are called by God to lead, whether it is in ministry or business or both, you have been set in authority by God over that enterprise. You will make mistakes because you are still human. However, just because you make a mistake in leading others does mean you are to abdicate your place of leadership and authority. Parents can make mistakes with their children but it doesn’t mean that they stop being parents.

The temptation for some people is to criticize you when you make a mistake, and take it further by questioning your authority and leadership at all levels. God let Moses’ family know that was not right.

Putting Criticism in Proper Perspective

The questions that follow will help you put the criticism that you may receive in proper perspective.

1. Determine if the purpose was to build up or tear down.

If someone is criticizing you, ask yourself, Is this to hurt me or to help me? Many times criticism from people projecting their hurts or anger onto you as a leader. I call this “emotional dumping.” It’s important to know the difference between criticism that is “self-projecting” and criticism intended to help you see where you may have a blind spot.

2. Ascertain the person’s attitude. Was it judgmental or gentle?

3. Consider if the criticism occurred in public or private.

I can guarantee you that any legitimate criticism will always be told to you in private. If criticism is constantly coming in a public setting, that is a pretty good sign that the criticism is meant to hurt you.

If you are the one criticizing, why does the criticism need to be private and not public? First of all, you’re not trying to lead a rebellion. If you’re truly trying to help the leader, you won’t degrade his or her authority. It’s nobody else’s business what you have to say to the leader. Even if it is other people’s business, they don’t need to know it in that setting.

4. Analyze if the criticism was said out of personal hurt or for personal benefit.

Many times criticism comes out of someone’s personal hurt. It’s important that you make the differentiation. Most criticism comes off as legitimate, but the real issue is what’s in their own heart.

When I first starting pastoring, I was 24 years old. I didn’t know a lot. I still don’t know a lot, but I certainly knew less then than I do now. There was a very well-known businessman in the local community. We had a friendly relationship for three or four months or so. We talked, had coffee together, and all of those things. All of a sudden, he began to criticize me about the finances of the church. At that time I wasn’t even handling the finances. I didn’t even see what came in and went out. We were an Assembly of God church with a Secretary/Treasurer and the whole nine yards. We voted on when the toilet paper was supposed to be bought—we did all of that. I couldn’t figure out why he was criticizing me about the finances, which was an aspect of the church I had no involvement. As a matter of fact, at that particular time, I was getting paid a minimum amount of money.

The more I visited with this man, the more he criticized. Come to find out, he had filed bankruptcy five times. Usually, people will criticize you in areas that they have a hard time with.

5. Identify the Source of the Criticism.

You always need to know the person who’s criticizing. If somebody comes and says, “This was said about such and such in the church,” my first question always is, “Who said it?” Why is that my first question? If the person has a pattern of criticism in his or her own life, it’s probably a pretty good sign that it’s not about you.

Identify the source and you will know how legitimate the criticism is. In other words, you have to be able to size up the situation and consider the source. Most of us let whiners keep us from being winners. It’s amazing how a good strong leader, if they’re not careful, will give into the dictates of a whiner and change the whole flow of the ministry because a person doesn’t like it. Think what Jesus would have done!

Let me give you the other side of this. If the criticism comes from people who normally don’t criticize and generally have a positive attitude, I listen intently. They’re probably seeing something I don’t see.

6. Compare the person’s problems with their criticisms.

People have a tendency to project their own problems onto other people. As a leader that’s a big issue. Jesus says in Matthew 22:39 that we need to love our neighbor as ourselves. The key here is if people don’t love themselves, they sure won’t love you. If people are angry at themselves, you can bank on it, they’re going to be angry at you. They’ll make it seem like you’re the problem as the leader! Quit owning other people’s problems. There’s a real key there as you learn to grow and handle the situation as it needs to be handled. Compare the person’s own problems to their criticisms.

7. Realize That Even Good Leaders Get Criticized

John chapter 6 is actually a teaching on leadership. It teaches you how to deal with other people.

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God (John 6:66-69 NIV).

I want you to realize that even good leaders get criticized and followers leave them. This Scripture passage in John 6 tells us that followers even left Jesus. They left His church, they left His home group, they left His district—they left the greatest Teacher who ever lived!

Young pastors call me and ask if there is any advice I could give them as they start their church. I don’t ask them how much of the Bible they know. I don’t ask how brilliant they are in their theological dissertations. I don’t care about that. I want to know how they handle people. Why? Because the first time somebody leaves, if they don’t understand what’s going on, they will be devastated. Most pastors quit the ministry because of that one reason. Most leadership in the church quit because of relationships with other people.

Sometimes there’s not a whole lot you can do to keep somebody from going or leaving. Jesus couldn't and you can’t. What you want to do is you want to blame yourself, then you want to get angry and blame them. Let’s forget about blaming them or blaming yourself and just realize it's going to happen. It’s the normal way life works. People leave. Listen. Don’t blame them, don’t criticize them, but don’t blame yourself either. Just realize it’s the principle of life.

8. Dispel the Myth—Their Problem Is Because of You

Do you remember the phrase E.G.R? It means Extra Grace Required. EGR’s and your own guilt will make you think you could have done more.

I remember a particular situation where a lady led the praise and worship, and she did a good job. The problem was every Sunday morning she would go on and on and on speaking in tongues over the microphone. When I say on and on, I don’t mean a message and interpretation and everybody shouted and then go to the next song. I mean she would take fifteen minutes to speak in tongues. The pastor asked her to stop because they had a lot of people who didn’t understand it. He told her that if she was going to do it—give a message, get an interpretation, and move on. To do it decently and in order. This woman was offended.

When I spoke to the pastor about it, I asked him about the lady’s marriage. He said, in essence, she wore the pants. Next, I asked about her father. The pastor said that just the other day the lady was talking about how she hadn’t forgiven her father for things he had done to her. Then I knew the root of the problem—she didn’t respect any kind of authority. She’d been hurt, she’s upset, and the last thing she needs is to be behind a microphone in front of everybody, unless she’s walking through recovery.

Her problem was not the leader’s fault even though she was blaming him for it.

When someone comes into the life of your business or your organization, you need to locate where the person is spiritually and relationally. With the help of the Holy Spirit, understand where that person is on their spiritual growth scale. The people who criticize you the most are people who are going through recovery.

If you’re so sensitive that anytime somebody says something the least bit negative, you put up your fists and say let’s fight, you’ve got a problem, right? You have to be able to love and accept people, size them up, and then you will know how to deal with them. Why? Because your whole goal as a leader is to help them get better at serving God.

9. Ask What They Like

Turn the conversation from the negative to the positive. If you find out what they like about your ministry, it may give more credibility to what they’re saying because that means they really have thought through it. They’re not just dumping emotionally or projecting their hurt into the situation.

When you ask what they like, it may help to direct you to meeting their individual or family needs. As leaders, we’re really meant to help people.

A prominent man (Frank Sotomayor) visited my church while I was pastoring and he said something to me one weekend that caught me off guard. He said, “You know one of the things that attracted me to this church? One Sunday you were standing outside shaking hands and I was coming by. One of the first things you said to me was, “Listen, if you need us to help you find a church, we’ll be glad to help you.” Then you listed some of the churches and I was impressed. I thought, This guy is recommending me to go somewhere else, I’m coming to church here! The point is that, yes, I want everybody to attend my church; but the real point is that we want people to find the best place where they fit, and that may not be your church or your business.

10. Determine How Broad the Criticism Is

Now why is this important? It determines the validity of the criticism. If it is broad-based, you'd better listen. This will help pinpoint if the problem really is with everybody and everything, or if there is something more specific the person is worried about.

A man came to me in the first church I pastored; he was on our church board. He told me everyone felt this negative way about something. It was a family church, so I figured he was probably right. I called another member of the board, devastated. He started laughing at me on the phone! I thank God I had some mature men around me who could knock some sense into me.

He said, “Well, Brother Epperhart, here’s what I’d like you to do. I’d like you to go back into that board meeting and ask this question. First I want you to read off what the problem is and give the response so-and-so gave to you. Then ask, 'Now does everybody feel this way?'”

So I did that. I went into the board meeting with my little yellow pad where I had it written down. My heart was pitter-pattering and I was sweating and shaking. Here I am all of 23 years of age and I’m sweating thinking about this conversation. I read the statement and asked if everybody felt that way. The sister of the guy who told me everybody felt that way, immediately spoke up and said, “I don’t feel that way.” Then his mother spoke up and said to her son, “How could you say such a thing?” True story—I’ll never forget it as long as I live.

When somebody says, “Everybody feels a certain way” the first thing I do is ask, “Who specifically feels that way? Give me their names.” I can tell you without reservation that in seventeen years of full time pastoral ministry, it has never been true that “everybody feels this way.”

It’s important that you don’t buy into the line. It also is important that you determine how broad-based the criticism is in order to determine the validity. When somebody uses broad-based criticism, it’s usually because they’re trying to champion their own agenda.

11. Maintain a Right Attitude

The last thing you want to do is get defensive. I have learned in the past that it’s pretty good to have a little righteous indignation at certain times, but you need to keep your attitude right. If you get hurt and defensive, there is no way you can deal with the issue in any objective way.

So if you feel defensive, what should you do? You need other people around you to give you some perspective. Fellow leaders can tell you how they dealt with a similar issue. I can tell you as a leader, the number one thing you need to be responsible for personally, is you absolutely must keep your attitude right. It’s okay to get with some healthy people who are in leadership with you, or above you in leadership, to vent how you feel. It is not okay to continue to vent that. It’s okay to say I’m hurt, I don’t understand, give me some perspective. It is not okay to camp out there.

12. Offer Resistance

What’s important here is that you and I as leaders should always be accepting of people regardless of where they are initially. Now what I mean by that is, let’s learn to accept people at face value. If somebody says he or she has a problem, we accept the fact there is a problem. If somebody is challenged by something, accept the fact that there is a challenge. But as they continue to come to you with criticism, or as they continue to come to you with that same problem, you need to begin to offer resistance.

Learn to set boundaries, because if you don’t do, you’re facilitating their negative behavior, and you could easily become codependent in a relationship like that. If they keep criticizing, you need to make sure you determine what the real problem is.

In leadership, you need to ask questions! It may be the first time they have been offered healthy resistance. Therefore, because of that, they may be able to grow and learn. The real key to leadership is to care enough for your people that you don’t care what they think about you, as long as you put them first and you’re trying to help them. Most of people do not offer resistance, because we’re afraid of what the other person will think about us. The problem with that is that we’re really not loving them if we’re not willing to help them through what they’re facing.

I want to warn you, though, the only reason you should be offering resistance is for the good of that person and or for the good of the group. You’re not offering resistance for your good. If you’re doing it for your good—that’s the wrong motivation. If you’re doing it to protect yourself, that’s the wrong motivation.

Always ask “what” question, not “why” questions. Why leads to their subjective insight, what leads to a specific issue. You’re asking for their opinion when you ask why. When you’re asking what, you’re asking for the issue.

If my child comes home from school and says there’s a problem with a teacher. My first question is always what. I don’t want to keep it on the level of their emotional hurt. I want to get to the level of the issue. Do I need to take time to deal with the emotional hurt? Absolutely. But I want to deal with emotional hurt after I’ve dealt with the issue. If not, the conversation devolves into a black hole of emotional hurt the child and I will struggle to climb out of.

13. Diagnose Fatigue

When you’re fatigued, everything is magnified. You’re too tired to deal with anything. Your emotions usually are wiped out. That tiredness sometimes causes you to want to run. When you’re fatigued, there’s no real spiritual or emotional resources to deal with things. Even the smallest anthill begins to look like a mountain because emotionally or spiritually you don’t have the strength to even go over the ant hill.

Usually if you’re fatigued you’re dealing with everything at a felt-need level rather than a real-need level. If something comes up and you have a short fuse, you will obviously overreact. You’re going to deal with it just out of frustration. When your body is tired and you’re in a negative mode, it doesn't matter what comes up, you’re going to be negative.

Sometimes people you are leading or dealing with are fatigued as well. Not only do you react on a short fuse whenever you’re fatigued, whenever they’re fatigued they react on a short fuse. As a leader, you have to understand at what fatigue level your people are to help you understand why they’re reacting like they are.

14. Surround Yourself with Positive People

Something happened to me this week that we’ll discuss in our Board of Advisors meeting. It was fairly negative having to do with the building and the tenants. About an hour after the situation, my friend Al Jandl called. He talked to my wife and then I called him back. He talked to me for a long time. Afterward, I felt a whole lot better. I had talked to a person who was removed from the location and able to see things objectively. He spoke positives into our life.

The greatest lessons I ever learned about criticism was from other people who were in leadership. If you do anything right in your life you’re going to be criticized. It doesn't matter what you do or don’t do—you’re going to get criticized. Hey, guess what, your adult kids one day are going to criticize you. You know those little precious 4 and 5-year-olds right now? One day after they’re grown up, they will tell you that you don’t know anything. One of the best kinds of positive people are the people who’ve been where you are and can share good news with you. That’s the best kind of people to be around.

15. Don’t Lose Sight of Your Calling

Listen to me. Don't let criticism steal your calling in life. The Southern Baptist denomination issued about three years ago a statistic about their pastors. Over 50 percent of their pastors were quitting the ministry permanently. Over 50 percent! My encouragement to you as a leader is not to lose sight of your calling because somebody criticizes you. Sometimes we do that enough ourselves. When you start listening to other people rather than God and His will for your life, you’ll definitely lose sight of your unique calling, or destiny.

Billy Epperhart