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Composure is an important characteristic of Gravitas and Executive Presence. It requires the skill of Anger Management.

Think back to your early corporate world days and tell me, which boss was the one you wanted to emulate as you progressed up the career ladder?

The one who maintained his composure and knew how to control his temper during crisis?

The one who used to keep shouting and screaming like a mad person and intimidating you and your colleagues?

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You can continue reading the transcript below:

Hi, my name is Vatsala Shukla and I’m the Chief Encouragement Officer of Karmic Ally Coaching and we’re continuing on our series of quick wins with Executive Presence Tips.

Now the question I asked you, you must consider because the mad mind, mad cap manager most probably didn’t get very far with his career and if he’s the role model you chose, then I’m sure you’ve had enough issues with your career.

If you went, if you chose to emulate the one who managed to keep calm and composed during crisis time, then I’m sure that by now you really don’t need to listen or watch this tutorial.

It reminds me of the time when as a Senior Audit Manager, I was working for a client who was highly strung to say the least and had a serious anger management issue.

In fact, there was one time when for no rhyme or reason he decided to take out his temper on me in front of his staff as well as my audit team.

He literally had me in tears. I phoned my boss and I told him what had happened.

And the boss simply said to get out of there for the day which I did and later on I told my boss that I was not going back in until this person gave me an unconditional apology which of course didn’t happen because this was a very important client and my boss, the Partner of the firm decided to go with the client.

That’s fine because a few months later I quit the firm because as far as I was concerned, an employer who does not value my dignity as a professional and as a lady, and who is willing to allow the client to misbehave with me in front of my team and put down my credibility, I didn’t want to work with such a company. And I soon after forgot about it and I moved on.

Come six months later and I got a couple of calls from my former audit team members telling me about an incident that had taken place recently when the audit, final audit was taking place.

This time round, my boss, the Partner was there for the finalization of the audit and this same client screamed and shouted at HIM in front of the team and of course my boss had to take it with a pinch of salt because this was a high paying client, very important client but it made an impact on my team members and soon after that they also moved on to companies where they were valued and they were respected because they felt that a boss who cannot stand up for himself or a lady manager was not worth working for.

About a few weeks after that, I got another call and this time it was from somebody at the client whom I had known quite well and whom I’d continued to stay in touch with and it seems that particular man had been fired because having gotten away with insulting me and then my boss, he took it one step too far and in a fit of anger he assaulted the Head of IT.

After that there was no turning back.

A person who had spent 25 years of his career with an organization in different countries was asked to leave because they could not have him assaulting people just because something was going wrong.

And all of that, an entire career went down the drain.

So you might be asking me now,

What’s Anger Management got to do with Leadership or Executive Presence?

But here’s the thing, the reason I shared this little story with you was because there are some severe effects of anger in the workplace and one of the most prevalent problems that employees say they face in the workplace is a leader prone to anger.

In this particular case, I have seen it with the audit client whose staff had also seen it and it went too far. And as you’d have guessed by now, anger is the most destructive emotion that a leader can exhibit.

And in fact, each year, millions of employees they either disengage from their jobs or leave them entirely due to their inability to endure their leader’s anger.

Now before you think that these are one-off incidents, anger at the leadership level is actually an old issue.

It’s one that has improved a little despite a greater focus in recent years on self-assessment, workplace behavior and anger management.

In fact, I’d go as far as to say, that Leaders who have learned to control their anger experience amazing responses from their people, as efficiencies, morale and engagement climb significantly.

And I have seen that too with leaders who knew how to maintain their composure in trying times and lead from the front rather than taking out their frustrations on their team.

4 Characteristics that impact Gravitas

So, when we think about Gravitas, there are actually 4 characteristics. If you’d like to learn more about what Gravitas is, then there is a link to a post where I explain it further but for now, there are 4 characteristics that impact Gravitas, which is your WOW factor, the one which makes people actually notice you when you walk into the room and know that there is something different about this person.

One is the Reputation, the other one is the Signature Voice. Then there is Composure that we’re talking about and Competence. Now today we’re going to focus on the composure element.

Composure means that you embrace challenges with vigor, seeing them as a call to do your best. It’s composure that calms fears and diffuses tension.

It clarifies thinking and focuses energy on solving the problem at hand which unfortunately my audit client didn’t seem to know how to handle. And this composure actually comes from exercising Emotional Intelligence.

It encompasses a leader’s ability to communicate and align with people and to align those people. Think back again to the question I had asked you.

If you had a choice between a leader who screamed and shouted and one who remained calm during crisis or under pressure, who would you prefer to emulate?

Which brings me to the question that, how could we avoid becoming a Leader turned Hulk like the client had and I’m sure many of you have your own personal examples of your workplace.

Well, I’ve got a couple of tips to help you with that. To maintain, control your anger and also to be able to present or demonstrate Executive Presence. But it all begins with you.

Allow Yourself to Feel Anger – For a Moment

And the first one is you’ve got to allow yourself to feel the anger but only for a moment. Because anger is actually a very natural emotion. And if you’re going to try to pretend that you don’t feel it, it’s only going to prevent you from processing those emotions in a natural way.

So understand that you’re human and give yourself a moment to allow yourself to feel angry. And then find a way to let the anger out. You can ask yourself what’s happened and why did it anger you?

And once you have a firm grasp on your thought process, then you have to ask yourself whether it is helpful? If it is helpful, then learn what you can from it. And if it isn’t helpful, then you’ve got to stop thinking about the problem and start thinking about what you need to do next.

Look at the Future instead of Dwelling on the Past

Another thing you should do is start looking at the future instead of dwelling on the past. In other words focus on solutions instead of on the setbacks because anger is never productive.

It is a waste of time and energy that could go into finding a solution to the problem.

So when the servers down and you’ve got a deadline, instead of shouting and screaming all around and getting angry, how about trying to figure out how to get the server up again or is there a backup you can use?

You can tell yourself, “it is what it is,” and then just keep moving forward.

Focusing on what to do next isn’t just productive, it also helps you to feel better after a setback. And looking for a solution helps to get your mind off of the setback by distracting you from what just went wrong.

In fact this is something I’ve seen with a lot of people.

They seem to keep thinking about what went wrong, what went wrong, they missed a promotion, this happened, that happened and I keep telling them, “Okay, what’s happened is in the past and you can’t really return or remove it but how about looking forward and seeing if there is something better that you can do or something better aligned to what is good for you?”.

Look at Things as Challenges instead of Problems

And then the third one is look at things as challenges instead of problems. If you can just do that, then it will actually help you to move forward faster. It will also stop you from getting so angry that you lose your composure.

In fact, reframe and think of the setback as a challenge. This is a mindset thing. Because most advancement and recognition in this world comes from overcoming challenges.

And if you could just for a moment stop griping about what went wrong, look at the situation as, okay, this is a challenge, how am I going to fix it because everything that goes wrong is actually an opportunity for those of us who can find a way to correct it.

What if another person upsets you?

Now you might ask me, what if another person upsets you? What then? Well, I’d like you to then think about it.

Did this person actually mean to upset you? Or is it something else that is going on inside you that makes you feel that the person deliberately tried to upset you or you got upset?

Remember the times when you have also done things inadvertently and managed to upset someone else. Did you mean it? Was it intentional?

Sometimes it’s better when someone has upset you to just calmly talk to them. Tell them what they did that hurt you or upset you and give the other person the chance to explain.

For all you know they wouldn’t even have known they have gone and upset you. You know getting upset is also a very personal thing.

So I have a quote from Mark Twain that I’d like to share with you which ties up with what I was saying about anger being so destructive and that is that anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than on anyone (to anything) on which it is poured.

In other words change the way you look at things, change your mindset, change your attitude, don’t let anger get the better of you.

Now to understand better about what triggers you, you need to have a higher level of Emotional Intelligence.

And the first thing you have to do to develop that Emotional Intelligence is to become more self-aware of what you’re all about, how you feel, what your triggers are, how do you react or respond to situations and for that I’ve got a wonderful self-study bundle.

It’s a self-awareness guide along with a workbook to help you and it’s not very expensive. But it will help you a lot in developing your own Emotional Intelligence and what sets you off.

To Recap our Anger Management Tips

So to recap, leaders with anger issues affect employee morale and productivity. You don’t want to be seen as that kind of a leader.

Instead you want to be seen as a calm, collected and composed person because composure impacts Gravitas which is one of the biggest elements when you’re trying to demonstrate Executive Presence.

High Emotional Intelligence is important for composure and managing anger and your mindset and perspective enables you to manage anger and demonstrate Executive Presence.

So as always, I have a question for you.

Do you find it easy to control your temper, manage anger and maintain composure?

If yes, then do tell me your little tips that I can share with others and if not, maybe its time for you to sit down and think about it as to where do you need to improve on it.

And do let me know in the comments. Bye for now.