What do Naomi Campbell and Amy Winehouse have in common with a company executive?
I am completing this article with today’s news of the tragic death of Amy Winehouse. She suffered with her addiction, a symptom of a form of anger turned in on herself.
Others around her suffered as a result of her and for her too. It is with sadness that I reflect on how she reached a point – before we know how she died – where she could not pull back and start to care for herself in a different way.
We all experience anger to a greater or lesser degree. The problem is that anger has a bad name.
As soon as someone famous “kicks off” in public my phones start ringing and don’t stop till the next person provides new column inches. Anger can be expressed many ways and has many outlets.
In business and industry there are many examples of angry behaviour from bullying in the boardroom to executives who take their anger home and take it out on the family. In many organizations conflict is swept under the carpet in the hope it will go away.
Holding in angry feelings can take a lot of effort and it is not surprising that this often drives self-destructive behavior both in public and more often behind closed doors
Humiliated
As a result business cultures do not always encourage people to communicate but to settle for partial solutions or none at all. Employees often feel abused and humiliated and this affects how they work.
Acting out anger often compounds the feelings that drive it and until the person is able to stop and look at things the problem tends to get worse. Unfortunately it gets a lot of attention as well.
Although anger is in itself just a feeling, just like sadness or hurt, many clients come to me believing that anger is a “bad” thing. The real problem is not feeling anger but how it is played out in your life.
There are two basic ways of showing anger. The most visible form is “exploding”, and this is what gets the headlines for people in the public eye.
Exploders suffer from temper outbursts. Their behaviour often gets progressively worse, putting work and family life in danger. They often do not trust others and have difficulty expressing their deepest feelings, this is expressed in their anger.
Even worse, their angry actions in public create a stereotype of who they are which puts more pressure on them, they feel less “seen” and more misunderstood. These feelings create a “spiral of anger” which becomes increasingly intense.
A senior executive may take their feelings out on their employees, who will generally have to “swallow” their response (implode) and they in turn may take their anger home!
This other form of showing anger, “imploding”, happens when we bury our anger deep – sometimes for years – and then emerges unexpectedly. Often this is because we fear the consequences of expressing what we are feeling.
Imploders often express anger through passive aggression and obstruction - not doing something or obstructing others. This is “anger through the back door”.
Holding in angry feelings can take a lot of effort and it is not surprising that this often drives self-destructive behavior both in public and more often behind closed doors.
When we feel angry it tells us something is wrong. The anger instinct is a primitive survival mechanism and can be useful.
I know that when my life was threatened I was twice as strong and could run twice as fast. When we are angry the primitive “fight, flight, freeze” response takes over as hormones flood the body, increasing blood pressure and pulse rate.
It is efficient and does this within milliseconds of being triggered. It impairs the cortex, impeding communication, rational decisions and problem solving. Above 100 heartbeats per minute it is hard to hear, let alone process what another person is saying. We get “hijacked” by anger and frustration and are no longer in control of our actions.
