There Will Always Be Rejection
On December 5, 2013, Nelson Mandela died, one of the great leaders of the world in recent times. His death brought the attention of the whole world. Thousands of dignitaries, world leaders, and ordinary people joined in words of praise and gratitude. 20 years before he was elected winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, being elected president of South Africa one year later. One would think that an undisputed leader like Nelson Mandela always enjoyed an excellent reputation both inside and outside his country, but this was not the case. During his struggle against Apartheid, even after achieving the presidency of South Africa, he was harshly criticized by radical groups inside his country. Mandela and his party, the African National Congress, were included in the list of terrorists in the United States. Even until 2008 Nelson Mandela needed a special waiver to visit the US for being his party considered a terrorist one.
This example shows that even the most renowned and admired leaders in the world have enjoyed a bad reputation among some peers, leaders, and part of their community. If this was lived by Mandela himself, what remains for the rest?
“Loved, hated, never ignored,” said Megyn Kelly when she visited us in our Reputation Management class. Clearly, a person who leads must often take risks and decisions that generate, even unwittingly, detractors. A leader, by the role he plays, will never be ignored because his decisions influence others. He will be loved by some and not loved by others. Always. And if this leader triumphs, these detractors will be joined by many people who will be envious of their success, who will criticize it with or without fundamentals.
But is it easy to deal with all this? Is it easy to get all those negative opinions, ruthless criticisms and even lies that deteriorate your reputation do not get in your head, cloud your eyes and lose focus of what you are doing? From my own experience, I know it’s not easy. As a Congressman from Chile, I had to lead several national discussions such as the tax reform, the labor reform and the pension system reform, being attacked several times with adjectives that are very different from who I am as a person. Even lies disseminated in social networks that fed totally unjustified criticism. All this is growing ruthlessly in our era of social networks, fake news, and post-truth, where spreading negative comments anonymously has become very easy.
As a leader, it was not easy to face this and Megyn’s comments on this made a lot of sense to me. We cannot avoid creating detractors or opinions contrary to ours. They will always exist, sometimes more and sometimes less. Nor can we control what the media will say about us, or what people will say about us in social networks. And the negative news will always stand out because they are more attractive. Therefore, we have to know that as leaders, in one way or another we will generate rejection and we must be prepared to receive negative and unpleasant comments.
Megyn pointed out that we cannot allow all those negative things to enter our head. In those moments “Stay with yourself and remember who you are. You define yourself”. It is essential to know who we are, what we want in our lives and how we want to influence the world. That definition is only for ourselves and not for the opinion of others. And when the detractors come, that there is no doubt that they will come, to stay firm and move forward.
