“Things in the ministry aren’t as good as they used to be.”
This one sentence from one person stirred in my brain for months.
We had just completed an incredibly successful event during which God was working in powerful ways in the hearts of men.
Following the event, I took some time to read through the surveys men had completed concerning the event. Out of the thousands of survey responses that were almost exclusively positive, this one comment stood out and took root in my mind.
Whether you are a good or bad leader, the fact that you are a leader means you will receive criticism. The old saying, “You can’t make everybody happy,” is true.
How you deal with criticism will be one of the key turning points in your leadership journey. The road is littered with leaders who did not know how to handle criticism, which either ruined them or their ministry.
How you deal with criticism will be one of the key turning points in your leadership journey.
Here are some practices to help you handle criticism better:
Ask for God’s Help
Probably the most important step in handling criticism is to seek God’s help on how to respond. Your response is not only what you do when you first see or hear the criticism but also what your mind does when you are sitting alone. Bring the criticism to God and ask Him to guard your heart and mind (Philippians 4:7) and to help you respond in love (1 Corinthians 13:7).
My mistake was allowing one survey response to cloud the overwhelmingly positive responses of the other surveys. I needed God’s help to guard my mind and see clearly so I could respond to the critical person in the best way possible.
Listen Before You Speak
We all have a default setting in our bodies when we experience criticism. Some of us feel we never do anything right, and criticism simply reinforces those thoughts. Others feel they can do no wrong, and criticism makes us defensive.
The best gift you can give yourself is to really listen to the criticism. James 1:19 tells us, “Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.”
Here are some things to listen for:
- Is the criticism coming from a place of hurt? People often criticize things because your actions (or lack of action) create hurt in their lives. For example, if you are leading through big changes and this results in people leaving your church, some people are simply hurting because their friends are no longer in the same church. Understanding the emotion behind the criticism will help you respond in helpful ways.
- Is the criticism coming from a place of not having enough information? There have been so many times where someone has made a comment, and then I realize they do not have access to the same facts or information I do. This opens the door to a conversation to help fill in their gaps.
- Is the criticism warranted? Have I dropped the ball in some way? Do I have blind spots that are now being revealed? Every leader will make mistakes. Sometimes, it will come because we don’t follow through on our commitments, and sometimes, it is because we aren’t helping to advance the mission we are supposed to be leading. People who criticize you because you deserve it are doing you a favor. Proverbs 27:6 says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.”
- Is the criticism about comfort? I have found that people, by nature, will lean into their comfort. If you make decisions that advance a mission, you can almost guarantee you will push someone outside their comfort zone. I’ve listed this one last because I have also found this is where most leaders tend to start when they are responding to criticism. It’s easy to become defensive and think the critical person is only after their comfort. Do the hard work of honestly asking the other questions first.
Engage (to a Degree)
Some leaders do everything they can to ignore or vilify the critical person. A better way is to respond based on what you learn as you intently listen to the heart of why this person is being critical.
Sometimes, the person is taking their criticisms and using them to cause division. Titus 3:10 teaches us to warn that individual twice about the dangers of their actions and then have nothing more to do with them. There are limits on how much you seek to appease critical people.
Keep Leading
Criticism can inform you, embitter you, or paralyze you.
God has called you to lead, so allowing criticism to paralyze your leadership is not an option. God has called you to lead with love (1 Corinthians 16:14; 1 Timothy 1:5), so becoming bitter with the people criticizing you must also be off the table.
Your best option is to keep leading while allowing the criticism to inform how you lead. Criticism should not be the ultimate deciding factor in your decisions; faithfulness to God should be. But criticism can help shape how and why you make certain decisions. The Bible teaches us in 1 Corinthians 12:21 that we need every part of the Body. Your critics can be God’s gift to sharpen your leadership for the future.
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