“__I don’t really care about being right, I just care about success. I don’t mind being wrong, and I’ll admit that I’m wrong a lot. It doesn’t really matter to me too much. What matters to me is that we do the right thing.__” Steve Jobs

At work, Ideas often feel like personal statements of our own level of competency. If I have good ideas, I am competnent. If I have bad ideas, I am incompetent. To some extent, you're right to feel this way. However, I'd argue that there are no such things as bad ideas. Every idea gets you to the ultimate goal of having success (the best idea).

Once we have the idea, we (hopefully) feel courageous orcomfortable, so we share that idea with our team. The team reacts to those ideas either positively ("yes, we HAVE to do that;" "seems like a good idea to me") or negatively ("not sure that will lead to the best results;" "That won't work b/c of X").

Here we have a choice.

Do you feel attacked? Do you feel personally attacked because they don't like your ideas? After all, if ideas are statements of competences, then having an idea rejected is the equivalent of someone telling you that you're incompentent.

No.

Ideas must be separated from the identies of those who have them. The best idea should win. As long as the idea is measurably better, it shouldn't matter who said it, right?

IMO, it's a responsiblity of the thinker(1) to separate their identity from the ideas they have. Don't get offended. They aren't rejecting your idea because they don't like you (usually). In a healthy team, ideas should be criticized, weighed, and iterated on by the whole team to get to the best result.

The best idea should win. Sometimes that idea only comes through a slew of "bad" ideas. Don't let ego get damaged along the way.

(1) Note that it's also a responsibility of the company to respond to ideas equally -- it shouldn't matter if it comes from a principal engineer, or a junior engineer. If it's the best idea, it should win. Meritocracy.