Corporate Trainer Certification | Motivational

Speaker

Six Leadership Qualities to Handle Criticism as a Gift

• Given below are the six steps in which you can handle criticism and accept it as a gift. You can use these steps constructively to build a plan for improvement that transforms the imperfect present into a perfect future.

• Welcome complaints with thanks• Accept your mistake• Apologize appropriately• Promise remedial action• Proactively rectify mistakes• Ask for help

Let’s discuss each of the above steps in order to have a better understanding.

• Be Thankful: Just consider complaints as valuable information, brought to you by some really honest and loyal person. They are similar to gifts that people bring for you, and therefore deserve a similar response.

• Although people hardly thank someone for bringing a complaint yet, considering the complaint he is bringing for us is a gift, it makes sense to welcome such a person by saying “thank you” as an expression of gratitude.

• Great leaders always keep reminding themselves that criticism is necessary for a continuous personal improvement, even if it hurts a little.

• Accept Your Mistake: Admitting a mistake, costs nothing, but can help you a lot to improve it. When you admit that you made a mistake and you actually mean it, you are on the right track. You then review and rectify rather than feel hurt or angry.

• However, at times due to the intensity of negative feedback, if you fail to consider it as a gift you can always come back to it later on and do some task recovery at personal level as it is never too late to accept a gift.

• Apologize Appropriately: Making an apology at times is one of the most difficult tasks, but sincere apologies, being one of the most powerful social exchanges between people, work wonders in rebuilding relationships. In the business sphere, when you apologize to the person criticizing you, you make him feel that you understand the inconvenience caused to him. This instantly makes him feel better.

• Your apology should communicate that you are distressed over disappointing the other person, that the relationship means a lot to you, and you are disappointed in yourself for your behaviour. Genuine apology delivered from the core of the heart can repair suffering and injured relationships. However, when expressed poorly, without sincere feelings, apology can damage the already damaged relationship even further.

• Promise Remedial Action: Once you have apologized sincerely, it is time to follow it up with an assurance of corrective action on your part; it should be expressed in such a way that the complainant is confident that the promised corrective action will be taken up.

• “I promise I will do my best to solve this issue for you, as soon as possible”- when the team or the complaining customer hears it from their leader, they instantly feel relaxed because they trust their leader’s words and that he’s going to take some solid steps in the required direction to deal with the problem.

• Ask for help: Sometimes, when somebody complains, and if this person is competent, enlisting his help in resolving the complaint is a good idea. His resources, your resources and the constant contact via feedbacks would ensure that the complaint is resolved speedily and to the satisfaction of all concerned, and the complainant, in particular.

THANKS FOR YOUR PRECIOUS TIME.

• Thus, by effectively implementing the above six steps, you will not only learn to accept criticism as a gift but will observe a significant change in your thoughts and personality which will take you to new heights of success. Also, all successful organizations make use of various measures to receive customers complaints for instance they train their staff to take criticism as a gift and use toll free numbers in order to get customers feedback, which helps them to improve and reap new business heights.