If you’re in a leadership role, or any role where you are outspoken and visible, chances are that at some point people are going to criticize you, sometimes fiercely, sometimes publicly. Are you ready for that? Two women who’ve felt the heat because of decisions they’ve made or arguments they’ve put forward—or simply because of who they are—reflect on the ways they’ve steeled themselves and dealt with the fallout. Listening to them recount how they responded to fierce criticism will hopefully help you think about how you might respond, both when you see it coming and when you don’t.
Over 40,000 businesses have future proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP bringing accounting, financial management, inventory and HR into one platform.
Download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning for free at netsuite.com womenatwork.
If you're in charge of an organization or in any role where you're visible and outspoken, if you host a podcast, chances are that at some point people will criticize you.
Sometimes fiercely, sometimes publicly.
Are you ready for that?
Ruchika Toshyan wasn't, at least not at the beginning of her career as a finance journalist and advocate for diversity in business.
She'd written an article about a new immigration category for the spouses of work visa holders, and in the comments section a reader called her, let's just say, the C word.
And I was absolutely shocked.
I mean, none of my training as a journalist had, you know, prepared me for it.
There weren't conversations really being had.
And the little bit that I was kind of hearing, a lot of it was from male journalists who were like, oh, let it just roll off your shoulders.
It's no big deal.
And this nameless, faceless troll had really just attacked me ad hominem for who I was.
It was really painful.
And it's been well over a decade since that happened.
I wish I could say that was the last time.
But as a woman on the Internet, as a woman of color on the Internet, it still regularly happens, often in actually now more subtle ways.
Today, Ruchika runs a consultancy through which she advises executives on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
She also gives talks and writes books about DEI and posts about it on LinkedIn.
In putting herself out there, she's faced a lot of pushback that ranges from skepticism to downright harassment, and she's had to find ways to cope.