Can you take a little criticism without getting all ticked off? Do you mind if I give you a little criticism right now to help you out? If you don’t like some aspects of your communicator type, why not change? (No, I’m NOT saying change your personality, because you probably like being you.) But why not correct your weaknesses and promote your strengths? Too easy to be true, you say? A bold-faced sales lie? Don’t bet your life on it….
AN EMPATHIZER COMMUNICATOR CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM FACT SHEET
Do you often wish you would have said something different when someone cornered you with a criticism? Then chances are, you are a “too sensitive” sort, or an Empathizer communicator. Here are a few things to know about how great thou art, Empathizer communicators:
1. Empathizer communicators, or E-types, often fantasize about or wish they hadn’t said or done something to shut down the irrational comments of an arrogant criticizer.
2. E-types are also prone to ruminating over pointed criticisms that don’t belong to them.
3. E-types are too sensitive to others’ growth needs and have a hard time saying “no” to reasonable, or unreasonable, requests or actions.
4. E-types can’t easily stop false criticisms from draining the energy gas tanks dry in their communicator cars.
5. An E-type has difficulty believing, “You are in the driver’s seat of your own life,” or “You are the leader of your own life!”
6. E-types are too sensitive to others’ needs as well as being too sensitive to what others think of them.
7. “Don’t get too big for your britches!” is a prohibition against selfishness that most E-types obey.
8. E-types are often too insensitive to their private self-needs.
9. Many of the most powerful positive thoughts of E-types remain locked away in the cave or silent zone of their own skulls, thus benefiting no one.
10. E-types dread and are constantly anxious about being criticized, shunned, disliked or disapproved of, abandoned, shamed, or blamed by a peer group…or just about anyone, for that matter.
11. Everyone likes to fit in, yet Empathizer-type communicators feel like they are often the odd-duck-out and turn pleasing others into an addiction of sorts.
12. E-types grind gears in their blue communicator cars, all going along to get along, even when doing so drives them crazy or drains their energy.
13. Emotional words are taken too seriously by E-types, who need to learn that people throw around words, like tennis players volley.
14. E-types need to accept that they alone can understand Viewpoint A plus comprehend Viewpoint B to come up with compromise Solution Viewpoint C.
It’s the era of the E-type leader who has adopted I-type strengths, so it’s time to come out and play for keeps, all you zany-brainy E’s.
STUCK ON THE SPEED BUMPS OF LIFE
You don’t have to stall out when you hit a few speed bumps, called criticisms or psycho-critiques. If you’re doing great things, criticisms just come with the turf. After all, it’s almost always nothing personal. Practice disallowing criticism from shutting you up OR shutting you down!
ABOUT PROFESSIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST, CORPORATE TRAINER AND KEYNOTE SPEAKER DENNIS E. O’GRADY, PSY.D.
Dr. Dennis O’Grady, a Dayton region communications psychologist and author of Talk to Me: Communication Moves to Get Along With Anyone. Dennis is a relationship communications psychologist and corporate trainer who specializes in positive and effective leadership communication strategies. He is the original developer of the Talk to Me leadership communication system.