By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you muzzle your critics more effectively. Reading time: 2:32.

Sometimes you feel like a lion tamer, the way your critics growl at you.
Every time you snap the whip they growl even louder.

There has to be a better way to muzzle your critics. There is.

Forget snapping your whip. Instead whip up a snappy story. Then connect that story to an analogy. That’s what the most effective leaders do to silence their critics.

Let’s take a leadership lesson from President Abraham Lincoln in how to tell your critics to go to hell -politely.

First the background: After three years of his presidency and in the midst of the Civil War, Lincoln and his cabinet were under severe scrutiny. Critics screamed for changes in the administration and its policies.

Lincoln of course argued he needed more time to stay the course and finish the job without having so many distractions from his critics.

Lincoln tamed his critics with a value-laden story of a famous tightrope walker at the time: The Great Blondin, who had earned a worldwide reputation for crossing Niagara Falls perched on a 3-inch rope suspended 160 feet high over the turbulent waters. Continue reading →