For everything we do, creating, leading, decision making, someone will not like it. Especially if you put your work out for others’ consumption. A blog, a vlog, emails to coworkers about a new project you want to start, a picture on social media of a sculpture you made; some people will say negative things about your work. It can be hard at first to hear people say you are an idiot and tear your work apart, but you need to get over it and realize it will happen. You cannot be liked by everyone all the time.
In an organizational leadership context, the people that work under you will not like all of your decisions, or your ideas, or your initiatives. If you have formal or positional power over these people, you will have to work very hard to get them to tell you to your face when they disagree with you. This conflict is uncomfortable, it does not feel good not to wrong or when people don’t like your idea, but debate and sensemaking strengthen ideas. Questions about your ideas are often interpreted as attacks on the idea or attacks on you as a person. This is rarely the case; we need people to question our ideas so we can exercise their validity before we put them into operation. Without this key function, we lose precious time and energy playing catchup when we could have discovered the flaws and developed solutions through debate early in the process.
Not everyone will have to the courage to be candid with you even when you are open to feedback and take time to cultivate an environment that embraces candor. Some people simply lack the courage to disagree with people in person. You will have people that enjoy criticizing you when you leave and trash your ideas when you are gone. This is a culture issue; if you can get them out of the organization, it is best to do so. I’m not talking about people that are having a healthy debate about issues in the workplace. I’m talking about the people that will say negative things about any ideas just because they are a departure from the norm. Find people that fit the culture you are going for, we don’t need people to be parrots, have the courage to dissent from the person in charge, challenge traditional thoughts, let people think you are crazy.
Ultimately, we need to embrace the mental exercises that take us through ideas. If you are unwilling to entertain your people’s different ideas with even a discussion, why should they support yours with anything more than minimal compliance?
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