Managing Anger in the Workplace and Anywhere

Anger is an common emotion in the workplace.

Oftentimes, anger do not intensify initially but rather, manifest in the form of annoyance due to disagreement.

We often discard such trivial irritations, which we should not.

Why is that so?

This is because if we experience similar situations that irk us repetitively over time, these negative emotions can easily escalate into anger.

Anger plays out in different ways, often depending on our personality, as follows:

• Passive-aggressive: When we are angry, some of us turn inwards and remain quiet. We ignore those whom we are angry with and pay them no heed. We give them the cold shoulder to gain an upper hand in a power play (at least from our perspective), in a bid to nudge others to care enough about the situation to apologize first.
• Explosive outbursts: We verbally lash out at those who angered us by shouting. Our volume is often thunderous and our attitude belligerent. All the months and years of tolerance blows up and disintegrates in one single instant - usually in the form of accusations directed at others. At times, we might blame them for our predicament, refusing to bear all responsibility.
• Verbal abuse: We hurl abusive language at those who angered us to make ourselves feel better. Oftentimes, we rant and ramble during such intense emotional states. The things we say are usually illogical to others but it makes sense to us.
• Condemnation： We tend to get divisive when angry. We feel that we are right and if others are not with us, then they are against us. We will then try to one-up those who disagree with us, often by demeaning them in some ways such that they appear sub-par to everyone - either in private or in public.
• Disparagement & Ostracism: Continuing from the previous point on divisiveness, we will often proceed to sideline others who go against us and we might even cast them out - whether they are at fault or not. This is why anger is often considered as a mental affliction that makes us do irrational things. This often explains why some employees are given an unfair work appraisal by their supervisors who were previously angry with them, as they still bear a grudge.
• Favouritism: When we are angry, anyone who agrees with us is our ally. As a result, we will then develop a biased, favorable disposition towards them - for no logical reason other than the fact that they take our side. This confirmation bias skews our judgement, and we often make bad decisions in our angered state as a result.

Regardless of its form, anger is a form of mental affliction that most of us suffer from - at one point or another.

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The most primitive way of responding to other's anger, is to retaliate by retorting and rebutting, often absolving ourselves of all responsibility.

And the most common thought that comes to our minds?

"We are nobody's punching bags and hence, should not suffer fools gladly."

But this reaction often gets us in trouble, because it gets those who are angry with us more riled up. And the more we try to justify ourselves, the more they lambast us.

Anger does not resolve anger, in the same way that hate does not resolve hate.

But patience - coupled with an adept ability to put ourselves in others' shoes with a willingness to forgive and forget - resolves anger.

This is easier said than done, as it requires effective practice. Nevertheless, managing our anger well can be achieved.

To manage our anger, we need to understand the following:

- The Nature of Anger

- How Anger affects Us.

- Examining Anger

- Creating the Pause

The points above are what we are going to discuss next, in this order.

NATURE OF ANGER

There are generally two primary causes of anger.

1. IMPATIENCE & DISSATISFACTION

If we were to examine the main causes of anger, it's not the things that we often think they are.

The nuisances who blast their music in the wee hours of the night.

The annoying people who keeps talking to me and asking me questions.

The interlopers who keep probing into my private life.

These are external causes in our environment that causes our anger to arise.

However, these are not the main elements that trigger our anger.

What is one main cause of our anger then?

It's impatience or rather, our lack of patience. This is often accompanied by a sense of dissatisfaction with the person or situation involved. Or both.

Sometimes, we could be very stingy with our time.

As a result, we do not like others intruding in our lives since it takes up our time that we can use to do what we love or want.

In addition, a contemporary society that supports and rewards instant gratification compounds this problem.

Think of automation that speed things up, or the instant notifications of likes on our social media posts.

Social media worsens the situation because it encourages us to build a public self that resolves around us, and not others.

More and more of us are getting more and more impatient and discontented over the number of likes we garner.

Hence, an increasing number of us are getting angrier and angrier more frequently over time.

It creates in us a kind of entitlement, sometimes to the extent of expecting likes for our posts.

If someone who used to like our posts suddenly stop liking our subsequent posts, we might get angry, without putting ourselves in their place. Maybe they have missed our posts, or they might be busy, right?

It is regrettable that some of us are angered so easily.

2. NOT LOVED

Another primary reason for being angry is because we feel that unloved.

Someone nags at us and we get angry. If we are loved, we should be not nagged at, isn't it?

Someone tells us we are ignorant and we get angry. If we are loved, we should be praised, and not demeaned, isn't?

Someone who does not reply to our messages, especially after they have read them, often irks us. If we are loved, we should be respected, isn't it?

While impatience and dissatisfaction is a temperament that can be improved through the development of patience and kind understanding, a lack of love is more challenging to address.

This is because feeling unloved is not situational but oftentimes, a deeply-entrenched mindset that is developed and strengthened through past negative experiences in our lives. It is often made worse through confirmation bias as we look at people and things around us using a pair of biased lenses.

To address this, we need change our world views - from feeling unloved to being loved.

Some ways to manage these causes of anger are highlighted this article below.

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If you look at the primary causes of anger - impatience, dissatisfaction and feeling unloved - we see a common element running through them.

What's that?

All of them are internal triggers.

Things that happen externally simply serve as a catalyst that ignites anger.

What does this mean?

This means that anger is caused by something within us - our negative thoughts that brings about negative emotions.

This unhealthy thought process is something that we can logically manage. We need not and should not react to, repress or suppress it.

We just need to be mindful of our thoughts that build up our anger and reframe our thoughts such that we do not get angry.

HOW ANGER AFFECTS A PERSON

Now, after having examined the causes of anger, it's easier to talk about this section since we are now able to imagine what anger feels like.

After someone offends us, anger often comes fast and furious, leaving us with minimal time to respond.

So we react instead.

Our primitive urge to retaliate is often quicker and stronger in intensity, such that it hijacks our thoughts before our rational mind seeks to rationalize the situation.

There are some who are able to stay calm in the moment - for a while.

However, despite giving ourselves time for contemplation and reflection, we do not know or are not skillful enough to understand others and the situation.

As a result, instead of calming down, we get angrier over time instead.

We appear more puzzled than angry by others' anger at first but after a day or two, our anger will gradually intensify. This is because we did not process our thoughts, which is equally undesirable.

The abovementioned instances are often our natural behavioral reaction to anger.

They are not only detrimental to our relations with others, but indulging in our anger by engaging in recursive negative thoughts can only result in our mental distress, making people around us miserable. Over time, our anger can damage both our mental and physical health.

Let's take a moment now to think about what have been said so far before proceeding to the next section.

EXAMINING ANGER

Firstly, we have to understand that anger is not a part of us but merely, a mental affliction.

However, it is also not something that we can dismiss at will.

When anger arises, it can be very fast and only the mentally alert notice it early.

The good news is that the earlier we notice anger arising in us, the higher the chances that we can choose not to be angry. Or at least we will not be as angry as if we are ignorant of it.

This requires mindfulness - a mental alertness to our arising thoughts, reframing any negative thoughts, and then selecting an appropriate response.

Secondly, while it seems that anger is everlasting, this is never the case. Anger dissipates with time and how long it takes depends on how willing we are in letting go of it.

And should anger stemming from the same cause arises again, that's because we allow it to.

Anger - like happiness - is a choice.

Anger is very harmful to our health and we adversely affect the mental well-being of those around us when we fly into a rage, so why do we still hold on to anger?

The common reasons are as follows:

• I am wronged and I don't like that (victim's mentality)
• I need the person who anger me to apologize to me, else I am not going to calm down (an-eye-for-an-eye mentality)
• I am no one's punching bag and I don't suffer fools gladly. (self-centric mentality)

You can observe that when we are angry, it's almost always about ourselves.

Thus, to not be angry, we need to look at things from the other person's perspective.

This is one effective way to reframe our perspectives, which requires a pause in our thoughts.

This pause gives us a chance to stem out the arising anger, which brings us to the next point.

CREATING THE PAUSE

This pause is very important for anger management, but it is not easy to create - especially for those of us who are hot-tempered.

Our best training partners and environment are often those people or situations that aggravate us respectively.

If we don't train ourselves, we will meet different individuals exhibiting the same traits or different situations provoking the same angry reactions in us over and over again.

As comedian and actor Jeremy Pivens said:

"Sometimes in life, we have to continue to learn the same lessons until it sticks."

I know of someone who is nagged by his supervisor for four hours on his work appraisal - an hour followed by three straight hours to be exact.

How many of us have been nagged at for four hours?

During these excruciatingly unbearable four hours, he was told that he had overestimated his abilities, with an underlying hint at his incompetency and ignorance.

Most of us would probably feel nothing upon hearing of his ordeal but things would probably have been very different if we are the ones facing the music.

We often do not take well to nagging, and even five minutes is unbearable to most if not some of us, not to mention four hours.

So, how did this person do it?

Well, what he did was that he created a pause.

Yes. The Pause.

When his supervisor told him how incompetent he was, he paused and did not take it personally.

He then analyzed what had been said to him as the nagging continues in the backdrop - its volume reduced in intensity.

While some feedback made sense to him in terms of areas to improve on, most don't.

He just listened on without responding but internally, he noted what is relevant and tuned out the rest.

While he did try to put his perspective across initially, his supervisor simply rebutted him and shut him down repeatedly.

After a while, he chose to keep quiet.

He knew there's no point persuading another with a fixed and inflexible mindset who feels adamantly that they are always right.

At the same time, he ignored the caustic and accusatory tone of his supervisor with the occasional of sardonic humour, and waited for the nagging to end.

He knew there and then that his supervisor is not someone whom he would like to work under in the long term. He is looking for a supportive supervisor who would motivate and not demean and condemn him.

Thus, a likely altercation is averted.

More importantly, we can see that this employee has exhibited the following traits of an individual with high emotional intelligence (EQ), specifically in the areas of self-awareness and self-management:

• Understanding that someone who insists in their ways is simply egoistic and often cannot be reasoned with. Hence, he kept his cool.
• High level of self-restraint in holding back retorts and not getting defensive.
• Patience to hear someone out and not arguing the moment he realized that it's futile.
• Strong analytical skills that enable him to sift out what's relevant to him, and what's not.
• Strong self-reflective skills in knowing what types of supervisors suit him, based on real-time and perceptive observation.

We can observe through this example that to reframe our perspectives we can select an appropriate communication approach based on their personality and situation - besides putting ourselves in others' shoes.

Thus, we can see that EQ and the ability to not get angered is related.

If we develop the various traits of EQ, we will still arrive at the point where we can manage our anger.

However, this article chooses to focus on a different approach - developing a healthy mindset that focuses on understanding, equanimity and compassion.

Both approaches are workable.

It depends on which approach we choose for ourselves, which is based on individual preferences.

Here are some mindsets that can be used in combination, and which may be useful for us to create that pause:

Treat those who are angry like how we would like to be treated when we are angry.

When we are angry, how would we like to be treated? We would often like someone to lend us a listening ear and not tell us that we are wrong, right? Thus, we would do well to listen than to get defensive by arguing, retorting, persuading, or justifying.

Understand that being angry with others does not do anyone any good.

First and foremost, anger damages our health.

Secondly, it adversely affects the mood of those around us, not to mention that it damages our relationship with others whenever we blow our top.

People are also not receptive to listening to someone who is in a rage as they seem irrational at that point in time. Thus, we derive no benefits from being angry.

However, this does not mean that we suppress or repress our anger, which can cause health issues over time.

If we are still too agitated or annoyed to speak at that point in time, we should take some time to calm down before speaking to others. Taking slow and deep breaths helps but not when we are very angry.

If we need to excuse ourselves, we should do so soonest. Most people would understand. After all, who have not been angry before?

Only when we are in a calm state should we allow ourselves to talk to the relevant parties to resolve the issue.

After the altercation, we can let it out if we have a good friend who is willing to lend a listening ear. However, avoid speaking to those who do not take well to hearing others' "emotional baggage".

If not, we can take a walk in the park or listen to our preferred music, whichever works for us.

If we are handling angry people, it's advisable to let them vent first and not say anything first.

If we are patient enough, those who are angry would calm down and apologize. Some might even break down and cry. However, they would soon compose themselves.

These observations of transient emotional states serve as evidence that anger is simply a mental affliction and is never a part of our genetic make-up.

This is good news, since it means we can manage it.

Nobody wants to be angry. Being angry is just a way to be happy.

We are often angry because we feel unloved.

In the same way, when others are angry, they are looking for a listening ear, and not advice or reprimand from others. Even if they are at fault, they often want others to hear their side of their story.

If we are patient enough to tide through their tirade, it's not uncommon to see them thanking us for our time, and/or apologizing for taking up our time.

Throughout this whole listening process, we should not judge, chastise, interrupt or advise. Render others advice only when they asked for it.

At the heart of handling angry individuals that includes ourselves, lies the importance of patience and compassion.

Understand that almost everyone is, by nature, kind.

It's just that we tend to be self-centric.

Consider the following undesirable behaviour:

1. We try to change others because we want others to comply to our hopes and wishes so that we can be happy.
2. We reprimand and nag at others to regain a sense of control, but ignores the fact that people often change through their own free will and volition.
3. We refuse to donate to charity because we feel that our money can be used for our own needs and wants. We refuse to volunteer because we feel that our time can be better used for our personal leisure.
4. We bad-mouth other people, regardless of whether they are worse or better than us, just to feel better after making a comparison.
5. We ignore others who ignore us because doing so makes us feel dignified.

If we were to look at the five undesirable behaviours above, we can observe that all have to do with what we want, think and feel.

Thus, we often become unkind when the world revolves around us.

People are then angered by our actions.

Now, consider the revised mindset of placing others' needs before our own based on the scenarios above:

1. Understanding that others have their own way of life. As long what their lifestyles are not legally, morally or ethically wrong, we should celebrate our differences and possibly, learn something through this acceptance.
2. Understanding that everyone has varying temperaments and different life goals. We should be patient by observing them, before adopting the right way to communicate with them individually over time so that they are receptive.
3. Understanding that charitable donations help those in need, which requires both financial resources and our time. We all need help sometimes. We should consider helping the needy and the impoverished whenever we can to relieve their suffering, but within our means.
4. Understanding that bad-mouthing others is unwise and hurtful. We should thus refrain from doing so, even if others bad-mouth us. Every one of us should try our best to live our best lives in the best way possible, while remaining contented and grateful for what we have. However, we should refrain from comparing as this gives rise to negative emotions such as envy, jealousy, avarice and arrogance.
5. Understanding that there is always a cause for others who ignore us. It may or may not have anything to do with us. We should try to find out the cause so we can improve our relations with them, instead of adopting a passive-aggressive stance towards them.

By reframing our thoughts, we foster improved attitudes and behaviors, effectively reducing the likelihood of provoking others and, consequently, minimizing the potential for their anger to provoke our own.

This is a win-win approach.

However, this is easier said than done though.

It calls for the need to practice consistently and regularly.

The effort is worth it though.

As a Chinese proverb said:

"If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow."

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Patrick Tay? is an educator, career coach and people developer who has more than 15 years of professional teaching and mentoring experiences in institutes of higher learning. Previously, he had worked in publishing, corporate communications, education sales and business development.

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