I also agree, everyone wants to believe they are the type of person who is open-minded and receptive to criticism, but that doesn't mean they actually are.
Individuals don’t behave like machines, especially not when dealing with people they have known for a long time. That idea is readily accepted by most anybody when evaluating the CEO here, as far as I can tell, who would seem to be putting his emotions (pride) over the interests of his company. If we readily accept that he is guided by emotions, it’s inconsistent to assume someone in a similar situation (the HR head) would be completely immune from emotions and act machine-like, with Machiavellian calculus.
The only way to make this work would be to posit a difference in the ability of negative emotions to influence us, vs positive—pride vs loyalty, honesty, friendship, etc. since I’ve seen more people lose money loaned to a friend, than make money stealing from friends, or seeing the willingness of people to die rescuing others, I can’t really subscribe to such an arbitrary split.