Anger

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Smite flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!

Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once,

That make ingrateful man!

King Lear (a Leader, btw, who could have used a good Executive Coach)

By William Shakespeare

They see you, you know.  You’re not fooling anybody.  

Sitting across from them, sulfurous in your irritation; body language and facial expression telegraphing anger and emotion, raging silently across your own personal heath, or perhaps erupting like Vesuvius.

Oh, you’ve got your reasons.  

Maybe you feel disrespected or frustrated; disappointed, misunderstood.

It might be satisfying to let emotion slip its leash, to give into righteous indignation; to give your colleague(s) a good blast with a sardonic rejoinder, a cutting riposte.  “That’ll teach them,” you’ll think.

But therein lies the rub.  Words and behaviors of Leaders matter.  Goodwill and reputation (ingredients absolutely necessary for Leadership success) built over time can be burned down in an instant by incandescent, ill-timed expression.  There’s a choice to be made.  

Consider the possibilities which open if you could instead breathe, and calm yourself in that in between space where thought meets response?  What doors towards understanding , engagement and greater team effectiveness might open? 

We’ve all been there, right?  In our professional and personal lives, we experience what we perceive to be unjust words or unkind actions from others.  It is only human to get one’s back up, to wish to fight.  At such moments, the rational mind is not running the show.  Rather we allow the riptime of emotion to pull us out to sea.   

Management of the Self, specifically management of anger and irritation, are frequent discussions in my daily work with clients. 

An encouragement:  think of Leadership voice and physical comportment as tools in your kit, to be deliberately selected and deployed to fit a specific need. 

For example, a Leader who remains calm when everyone else is losing their mind, is a Leader who transmits confidence (despite internal doubts and worries) and inspires others in the face of trouble.  

Likewise, if a deliberately calm and patient Leader shows irritation at the team when standards are not met, the fact that there’s an unusual edge to the Leader’s voice, the team understands, “ut oh, we’d better sit up a little straighter and course correct, the boss is not amused.”

When we cannot consciously choose our voice, we risk failure as Leaders.  If our “go to” is visible irritation and torrents of angry words, we transmit to the world around us, “DANGER: STAND BACK”.  We’ve built our wall, shut down engagement and lost the ability to influence.

If you feel like you’re burning too many bridges, showing up in a way which is not helping you, here are some ideas to help you reframe your approach.  Consider:

1. Reasonable people can disagree.  Constructive disagreement is a Superpower of strong leadership teams as it makes the ultimate path chosen better.   
2. As such, everyone should celebrate the possibility of disagreement, of putting ideas to the test and thereby finding the best ones.
3. Check your ego.  If someone disagrees with you, are they disrespecting you or simply challenging your idea?  (reference Point 1).
4. How you and your emotions show up at work is a choice you make.  Own this agency.
5. Yelling and screaming is unhelpful (and typically unprofessional): resist the urge.
6. If you feel irritation manifesting in you, breathe.  Confront yourself.  Why do you feel this way?  What’s the cause?  Choose to let the air out of that balloon.
7. Presume good intent.  People can be inartful in expression. Comments may simply land wrong, but were not intended as such.  Nobody’s perfect, cut them some slack.  You will need the same grace at some point!
8. Engage, reach out, ask:  there’s nothing wrong with putting a question or a challenge on the table if you find a comment troublesome or irksome.  Seek clarity.
9. Don’t drag forward perceived sins from the past:  deal with the facts on the table, not impressions of something said by someone years ago.  
10. Likewise, don’t assign judgments or motives to what people are saying: make it about the facts in front of you.  
11. When you challenge, watch your tone.  Avoid sarcasm, condescension.  Adopt the attitude of wanting clarity and understanding, not the attitude of “winning” a point.  
12. Shut down unhelpful dialogs in your mind (e.g. this person is an idiot.  Even if you believe they are, action in light of such belief is unhelpful!).  
13. Inevitably, you will have colleagues who drive you bananas: such is one of the joys of being on a team. Keep in mind, it’s likely you yourself drive a few people nuts every now and again.  
14. Be the colleague and Leader you want others to be.

Finally, nothing herein suggests you have to be a doormat for anyone.  If you have a true beef with a colleague, address it head on. Have the courage to engage the person off-line, out of the heat of the moment and talk it through.  Look for a chance to establish a more productive working relationship (by the way, they may be blissfully unaware of this beef between you!).

None of this is easy, but consider the bridges you will build, the possibilities you will create for yourself and your organization, by managing your emotions, especially anger, in a thoughtful productive manner.  

Don’t be like King Lear: it did not end well for him!  There’s a better way.

I work everyday with individual Leaders and Leadership Teams to enhance their effectiveness.  If you would like to know more about how my Coaching, Consulting and Training offerings can help you and the Leaders around you improve your craft, please reach out and schedule a complimentary, no obligation Exploration Session at https://calendly.com/brian-jones-c4e/discovery-session

Until then, be well.

Brian