A crucial leadership skill is to stay focused on ideas, plans, and observable facts when your team is evaluating options and making decisions. Aim for vigorous discussion of possibilities and scenarios. Go last in presenting your ideas to minimize the situation where people are reluctant to disagree with “the boss.”
It’s healthy to critique ideas, statements, and plans. It’s always a bad idea to criticize individuals or groups of individuals. Focus on behaviors. It’s equally bad to interpret criticism of your idea as a personal attack. You are not the same as your proposal or idea.
Immature people attack others, and tend to take any criticism personally. Foster maturity in yourself, model it for others, and train people to have vigorous discussions without making it personal.
