Everyone feels angry from time to time: it’s a natural emotion. We often feel it in response to difficult situations, such as those that make us feel undervalued or like we have no control. Differences in opinion are also a major cause: voices and tensions usually rise when people fight for their opinion.
However, we must know how to properly control anger in ourselves – and others – if we want to work with colleagues effectively.
Dealing with Anger in the Workplace
Anger management calls for both a proactive and a reactive response to inappropriate behavior. In other words, your organization should establish a standard for people’s behavior and how the company will address it in order to avoid anger from developing in the first place.
You can keep up a work climate where people know that poor behavior is not tolerated if you control your anger issues well and address them as soon as they arise. Furthermore, you’ll help people understand how to react if they do encounter aggressive employees.
Here are 5 tips for dealing with anger in the workplace.
- Build a professional workplace culture.
To establish a standard for how individuals should act at work, encourage good behavior and logical problem-solving.
- Set a good example.
Behavior filters down from those in positions of authority and impacts others in the group: this is simply human nature. If top management allows their fury to govern them, everyone else on the team will do the same. Leaders who are composed and considerate set a good example for everyone by acting professionally, which encourages others to do the same.
- Provide training.
Staff at all levels need to know how to respond in confrontational situations. This includes dos and don’ts. For example, they should know not to react negatively, particularly physically, to aggressive employees. They should know to instead respond calmly and to report the behaviour to senior staff. Those in senior positions need to understand how to deescalate situations and take swift disciplinary action, so aggressive employees know the business has a zero-tolerance approach.
- Be empathetic and understanding.
Many people will respond well to an empathetic, understanding approach, and admit to their mistakes too. You can then move past the moment of anger and onto the original problem with a calmer, more reflective mentality.
- Remember that it’s not personal.
People’s anger problems typically result from deep personality traits that they acquired from a variety of past events. Their emotional response to challenges is anger, which they use to deal with those challenges. Therefore, even though it may seem personal to you when they attack you, they would probably react the same if they were in someone else’s position.