MANAGEMENT
So much has been said and so much has been written on anger management, so why more? The intention of this writer is to invite a thought that persons with no emotions of anger are as deadly managers as those possessed with it. This is one emotion, present equally in mankind and animal kingdom. Any normal individual can swing from the opposite pole ends of zero anger to extreme anger. My attempt is to portray the ugliness of the manager, supervisor or aptly titled, ‘boss’ who indulges and remains in this state for the longest of periods and for most of his work life. It is actually a sad management tale.
Anger is the closest ally of arrogance. Many managers grossly misuse the dejure authority of their office. They flaunt their position with disdain for emotions and sentiments of co-workers. They mostly trample their own nature blessed intrinsic quality of empathy with ruthlessness and banish it from their code of managerial behaviour and ethics.
An angry man is a deaf man. He listens to no logic or reason. These are usually incompetent bosses who make it to the top by conceit and connivance and in some cases by way of hereditary compensation.
Any individual calling himself as human will have mood swings. Some days and times it is good mood and someday it is not. This is normal. These swings are caused by either internal makeup or are due to external impetus. But these sentiments are important to be recognised. The trait of anger can exhibit itself with different manifestations and consequences. It is good to measure whether the anger gets ignited by an episode referred to as situational anger or is anger an all time friend of the manager who carries with him all year round as a pronounced characteristic. Those managers who are gripped with personal insecurities about their status, lack of knowledge and expertise usually will possess a higher voltage of anger.
This possession will most likely act as a prompt for him to display anger with no consideration for the person, place, time or occasion. Such manager would just throw a ruckus at the tiniest of provocation. He that is angry is seldom at peace. When anger speaks wisdom veils her face. The representative of a narrow sphere of understanding, the dynamics of human resource management, constitutes equally to the development of callousness tendencies towards the weak sentiments of colleagues. They have scant respect for emotions. And over a period of time, they start to lose their influence over their teams or co-workers. Their power of personal authority starts to erode. In an organisation that I worked for, a senior colleague confessed that out of deep insight and experience of dealing with his ‘boss’, an abusive boss, he had decided never to volunteer any information to him, because of his conviction that it will provoke rebuke, anger and resentment. Here, vital is hidden from the supervisor.
I would like the reader to assess, do you walk away from the supervisor, boss or manager or to whatever he calls himself; feeling happy at least eight out of ten times, if you don’t, you have a miserable corporate life to lead and an even more miserable and distressing aspect that you have a loathsome individual to deal with! Quoted David Freemantle in one of his books the following, “I avoid my boss like the plague. He is always finding fault, always shouting at people. In the early days I would ask his permission for things, never once did he say ‘yes’. Now I don’t ask him and just get on and do things. He’s the worst boss I have ever come across. If I hadn’t taken out this heavy mortgage I would leave now.” How many people are afflicted with this bonded labour? And to this manager of cuckoo-land he believes the colleagues are sticking because of ‘loyalty to him and the corporate’. How misplaced can beliefs be! Loyalty is proven only when there is a choice. It is important for the leader, the manager, the boss to see and ensure that every single colleague feels important, gets positive attention and for those faltering on performance, he willingly extends his hands for help and cooperation and not berate him, publicly. Anger consumes what goodness husbands.
The emotional wrecks, imbalanced and insecure manager over time hit at the roots of the organisation. Through display of anger-three qualities essential to being a good leader and manager that is passion, enthusiasm and commitment are broken into pieces, by the incorrigible, uncontrollable, angry boss.
The perennial angry manager’s attitude is my way or the highway. He only likes himself. He dislikes everybody else. He demonstrates his unruly pattern of thinking by throwing tantrums at the smallest of issues, fist banging on the table and in extreme cases of imbalanced internal personality, such would not hesitate to use choicest expletives, even in an office environment. Reason invariably dies out with anger. Such managers turn a deaf ear to any suggestion of corrective behaviour- anger and feelings of scorn hinder good counsel.
With a limited fund of knowledge and perceptive abilities managers corrupt their thinking. In challenging circumstances and situations, they are angry and hence emerge with their own brand of distorted perceptions about any given situation. They attempt to manipulate the mind of their reports, through intimidation and emotional hurt. They deceive themselves to be better than all the rest in the organisation. And any challenges to this misbelieve of theirs is refuted with exhibitionism of ruthless sentiment of anger. Poor indeed are these souls.
“Angry men are blind and foolish, for reason at such time takes a flight and in her absence, wrath plunders all the riches of the intellect, while judgement remains the prisoner of its own pride.” (Samuel Putnam). The angry are irresponsible with little commercial knowledge, inexperienced and largely incompetent and hence, this set of supervisors, never listen to good counsel and advice. Through the medium of fear they stifle and kill in the tracks a colleagues’ individual sense of dignity and honour. They love to publicly stamp out the personality of co-workers. They indulge in other different formats of anger display, like they would mock and often times use the humour route by mimicking colleagues- their sole purpose is to degrade. Anger is akin to temporary insanity.
Angry men lose their temper when they find you keeping yours in check. An Egyptian proverb, ‘indulge not thyself in the passion of anger; it is wilting a sword to wound thine own breast or murder thy friend’. The paranoia hits them hard, in each of the function, they perform. They excel in radiating cynicism about all colleagues. Such would always prematurely judge others.
“As a whirlwind in its fury teareth up trees and deforms the face of nature or as an earthquake in its convulsions overturns whole cities, so the rage of an angry person throws mischief around them.” Angry at the drop of the hat, means he will be angry for everything and nothing. What the repulsive manager fails to recognise is that anger depreciates his personal reservoir of happiness.
Angry manager’s chant. They rant. They thump tables. They pace in their cabins. The objective is to create inducing conditions for the ‘report’ to at least’ self immolate himself in the blazing fire of his after-thought, that attacks him most, once he is out of the supervisor’s office and is alone and reflective.
When faced with a boss of such temperament the organisation stands dehumanised. No amount of extolling the virtue of their ‘values’ that neatly adorn their corporate offices can take away the ‘disguised unemployment and attrition’, that afflicts such organisations.
An angry man, let alone a manager, is an ugly spectacle to see and bear. The state of mind allows for expression of the internal deformities of mind and thoughts. Would any reader like to be that spectacle? If no, then now is the time to shun all that brings anger.
The writer is a senior banker and freelance columnist
