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Earlier this month, I happened across an article on CNBC describing how Julia Roberts learned to handle career criticism.
The subject immediately interested me. On one hand, it felt strange that one of the most successful movie stars on the planet would have been dogged by criticism. On the other hand, it’s not at all surprising that a sensitive young woman in a very tough business would encounter emotional challenges she had to learn to cope with.
Being insecure, as Roberts described herself early in her career, criticism could be “crippling” to her. It threw her off her game. “If someone embarrassed me, it stopped me,” she said. “I was apoplectic.”
But Roberts also intuitively realized that Hollywood was “not an industry to be in if you can’t take criticism.”
So she made a conscious, thoughtful decision.
Instead of being upset by criticism, she became determined to look at it as an “interesting challenge for me to decide the kind of person I wanted to strive to be.”
Not Executive Material
This story resonated with me, as it was a nice example of a resilient, non-defensive response from someone who overcame emotional challenges to succeed (wildly) in her chosen field.
On a much more modest scale, her memories reminded me of criticism I received early in my career, and the way it influenced me.
I was having an annual performance review. My manager was a no-nonsense, self-made executive whom I greatly respected. When we discussed my future, as I recounted in The Type B Manager, she admitted I’d done solid work, but added:
“I just don’t know about you. I can’t quite put my finger on it,” she said, “but you don’t seem like a manager. You just don’t seem like executive material.”
To which I responded: “Why — what exactly is it that makes you say that?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, “you seem too quiet, too soft-spoken, too calm — not authoritative enough.”
Behaviors to Adjust
That conversation took place more than three decades ago, but I still remember it well. I was working for a strong, traditional, hierarchical life insurance company well over a century old, and I realized that if I hoped to make it in management, which I wanted to, there were things about myself I’d have to change, or at least modify.
On one level I was who I was, and my emotional DNA wasn’t going to change — but there were elements of my managerial behavior I could adjust.
While there definitely are benefits to a less intense leadership style, I did recognize I needed to become more authoritative, even if I didn’t particularly want to. I recognized, for example, that I had to hold people to higher standards, and to make certain there were consequences when those standards weren’t met.
Over time I gradually grew more comfortable with this persona, and while I no doubt made plenty of mistakes (I used to joke I made so many I couldn’t remember the first couple hundred), they kept me around in management for the next 24 years so I must have done a few things right.
Resilient Listening
But the point of this story isn’t about me, or about Julia Roberts.
It’s about resilience in dealing with criticism.
It’s about not being defensive and instead listening carefully when people tell you things you may not want to hear.
Because it’s easy to be, in Roberts’ words, “apoplectic,” when you feel under attack.
Sure, not all career criticism you’ll receive is valid. But some of it may be. So it’s important to think clear-headedly about it, and separate the wheat from the chaff.
And use it, to paraphrase the estimable Ms. Roberts, to help you become the kind of person you strive to be.
