Episode 61: The Leader’s Tax – Criticism
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Lead long enough and it will find you. The email that lands wrong on a Tuesday morning. The comment after a sermon that won’t let go by Thursday. The board member who says what everyone else was thinking but wouldn’t say out loud.
Here’s what forty years of leadership teaches you: if you’re leading and nobody’s ever criticised you, you’re probably not leading much. Craig Groeschel put it plainly: “If you’re not open to criticism, you’re not open to leadership.” Criticism isn’t a sign you’ve failed. It’s a sign you’re visible enough to matter.
In this episode, Carson, Chuck, and Ingrid sit with that. Not to make criticism comfortable, because it rarely is, but to help mentor leaders to tell the difference between feedback that’s shaping them and noise that’s just trying to wound them.
And as is their style, they don’t leave it theoretical. Proverbs 27:6 grounds the idea that a friend’s wounds can be trusted. Matthew 5 shows a leader who bore constant criticism and stayed the course anyway. And they get honest about the harder case: criticism that’s simply unfair, born from misunderstanding rather than any real mistake, and how to tell the two apart without losing your footing in the process.
Three things worth carrying out of this conversation.
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Pause before responding.
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Separate the message from how it was delivered.
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And ask, every time, whether this touches your values and your calling, or whether it’s just noise you’re free to release.
They flip it around too. Most leaders will give criticism at some point, to a staff member, a volunteer, their own kids. Ephesians 4:15 offers a line worth building a leadership on: speak the truth in love. That’s the whole art in five words.
Here’s the question worth carrying into this episode: when criticism stings the most, is it usually because it’s wrong, or because it’s true?
So grab a cup or glass of your favourite beverage and join this important leadership conversation.