Managing Anger in the Workplace

Author

• Dr. Donald Gibson , Bruce Tulgan

Relationships at work tend to be interdependent, competitive, hierarchical, overexposed, and compulsory. Keeping the interests of yourself, your boss, your peers, your subordinates, your vendors, and your customers in alignment all the time is impossible. Meanwhile, you must also contend with competitors and unpredictable markets.

Thus, for most people, work involves a constant juggling of-and wrestling with-competing interests. Whether the stakes are pecuniary, psychological, or both, they are always on the line in every interaction at work. While the workplace is an environment more likely to provoke feelings of anger, the consequences of poorly managed anger in the workplace may be much greater than in other contexts. At the same time, if managed effectively, anger can be a positive and productive emotion producing valuable data, as well as considerable motivation.

Managing Anger in the Workplace will help you understand the costs and benefits of anger in the workplace; diagnose anger and common anger syndromes; use the underlying causes of anger as data to continually improve relationships, systems, practices, and policies; and manager anger in yourself, in others, and in your team.