This is the third installment in our Healthy Leaders Series. Make sure you read the others and stay tuned next week for our Healthy Teams Series.

It has been widely noted that there are two things no human adult can avoid: Death and taxes. It turns out, only one of these is true if you’re wealthy and powerful enough, but that’s not a thing we’re going to get into today.

Anyway…

If you’re a leader, there’s a third thing you’ll never be able to avoid: Criticism.

It’s everywhere, comes from every direction, and has the ability to hijack our thoughts and ruin an otherwise great day. And when you’re in the public sphere, it sometimes comes from people you don’t even know.

But here’s the thing about criticism for those of us who are in leadership: Criticism is vital to our health. Without criticism, we can easily begin to believe that we’re doing everything right. And believing we’re doing everything right can lead to the kind of ego we’ve seen take leaders down from the beginning of time. We don’t want that.

Leaders who can take in and process criticism in healthy ways are leaders who can be in it for the long haul. Leaders who know what to do with criticism are resilient and humble—the kind of leaders others want to learn from.

Now not all criticism is created equal. The key to developing a healthy relationship with it is learning to distinguish between helpful criticism that deserves your attention and unhelpful criticism that deserves the trash bin. If you’re anything like me, though, all criticism feels important, regardless of where it’s coming from. So, how do we decide what gets our attention and what gets ignored?

Here are two questions to ask whenever criticism shows up on your doorstep:

Is the criticism coming from someone who’s thoughts matter to you and your work?
Is the criticism valid?

If you’ve answered yes to one or both of these questions, this is something that deserves some of your time and energy. That may look like a follow up conversation with the individual who brought the issue to your attention. It may mean a team meeting to work through the issue and find a path forward. It may mean a conversation between you and God.

If you answered no to one or both, chances are pretty good you can simply acknowledge it with a polite “thank you” and move on with your day. Remember those boundaries we talked about? They come into play here in a very big way.

Of course, there’s a caveat here: If you’re hearing the same criticism from multiple people, regardless of whether you know all of them or whether you think it’s valid, you’ll want to at least take the time to consider what’s being said. God isn’t above using complete strangers to speak into our lives about things that need our attention. Heck, remember that donkey in Numbers 22?

This may feel simplistic. This may feel dangerous. But I think you’ll find that posing these two questions whenever criticism comes your way will make a big difference in your mental and emotional well-being, as well as your calendar. And I think you’ll agree, those are important places to pursue healthy leadership.

Does this feel hard for you? Let me help you figure it out.