Being in the senior position I have had both attitudes (critical AND supportive), and I can tell you it has to do with how the ideas are presented to me. Somet

Being in the senior position I have had both attitudes (critical AND supportive), and I can tell you it has to do with how the ideas are presented to me. Sometimes the new developer will come in and talk about how his new thing is better than everything else, and everything written before him was garbage. You can bet he will get a lot of criticism. This is not some ego thing (although I am sure that does have an effect), but because it's clearly what he needs in order to gain perspective. I mean, unless he really did create something that awesome, but so far that has not occurred. On the other hand, I have had people show me things that are not very good, but the idea is good and she just wants to show me. In those cases I have a lot of praise for her and encourage her to develop it further Likewise, if the person is just looking for input, I will usually focus on the positive. While it may not always be true, if you find you get a lot of criticism it may be because you are overly promoting your own work.