Skills to avoid an outburst at the workplace

Diffusing your own or others' anger takes skill and care and it’s crucial for a healthy workplace.

Anger at work typically surfaces when we feel vulnerable or exposed. It shows up when we feel under attack, or when something we valued or hoped for is at stake. It is sometimes posited as a protective emotion, arising when we feel threatened. According to neuroscience, this triggers the amygdala which overrides rational thought and causes strident action and reaction. The “amygdala hijack”, as it has come to be known, is evident when you see a colleague “acting out”. Slamming down a phone or shouting at a direct report is nature’s way of externalising anger by venting aggression. A common alternative is suppressing anger. This has a pressure cooker effect and can lead to explosive results later on. There is a middle path, however, one that requires us to behave more skilfully.

Identifying negative emotion

Our primary caregivers are the first “leaders” we encounter. Their reactions to anger when we were children shape our own anger responses. If returning the anger was permissible in your household, then storming around the workplace later in life may seem quite natural. If you were neutral, you may have been suppressing your irritation. If you were scared, then you probably built coping mechanisms to avoid making people angry.

Problems are exacerbated when anger is combined with authority. Both men and women resent angry bosses. They often feel helpless and unable to exercise their own authentic emotions as a response. Sometimes this can lead to the person kicking down the frustration to his or her own direct reports or trying to buffer it.

Another nasty corollary is that conflict avoidance is value destruction. Business is business: tough conversations or disagreements need having. Being passive, or even worse passive aggressive, leads to wrong decisions being made by overbearing bosses. In most cases, we have a responsibility to confront. This is easier said than done.

Addressing anger

Some advice to people who often find themselves in the “red zone”: start by figuring out what makes you angry, whether it is lack of attention to detail in a presentation or long rambling meetings that go off-topic. Ask yourself why these are your triggers and where in your past they come from. Write them down. Seeing them outside yourself is powerful. Learn to become instantly aware when that is happening. Next, if you are in a meeting room, write down your emotion. For example, when a direct report is whining, or a meeting is dragging on, write the word “irritation” discreetly on top of your pad. Labelling is a way or externalising the feeling and not allowing it to build inside you. It’s like letting the air out of a balloon. Changing the context can help.

Take time to address anger

Learn to skilfully express the emotion you are feeling. “God, you guys have been rambling on for the last half-an-hour and we have got absolutely nowhere. What an utter waste of time!” certainly conveys your point. However, if your intention is to change behaviour and accrete value then you need a more skilful approach.

Use a feedback model like SBI (situation, behaviour, impact), and embellish it by adding an emotion and supplementing it with a future orientation. This allows you to reveal your feelings and lessen the associated inference of threat: “I am very irritated (emotion), because for the last half-an-hour in this meeting (situation) we have deviated wildly from the agenda we set ourselves (behaviour) and the result is, with only a few minutes left, we are no closer to consensus (impact). My suggestion for the future is we have a much more rigorous chair (future orientation).”

If you are on the receiving end and the person has “lost it”, simply say: “You are clearly very annoyed and I don’t think we will come to a constructive conclusion here today. Let’s talk about this later.” Then beat your retreat.

Find the right time to respond

Another route is not to engage in the argument but practice active listening. Using empathy is a way of calming others. Taking a compassionate viewpoint as to why they are angry may be a far better route to alignment than arguing your corner. That does not mean you should “roll over”. It means you need to combine persuasive arguments with timing to influence others.

Graham Ward is an adjunct professor of leadership at Insead and leadership development practice director at the Insead Global Leadership Centre

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