Your inability to manage your anger and temper tantrums is not a sign of high Emotional Intelligence.

And yet some leaders feel it is a good way to control and ‘guide’ their teams. I beg to differ.

In my blog post on Composure and Executive Presence, I mentioned the client who had serious anger management issues and what became of his career. His behaviour went unchecked until he assaulted the Head of IT in his company and was fired, despite being a ‘valuable asset’.

Sometimes people use it as a strategy to achieve a goal like the way the late actor Siddharth Singh did to win the 2019 edition of the Bigg Boss reality show.

Singh used to react angrily and aggressively with the other housemates.

At the time my Mom and I decided this guy had serious anger issues. One could see the veins in his neck stand out when he got into his shouting match.

Healthy versus Unhealthy Anger

I’m not saying you should never get angry. To be honest, we all get angry and lash out.

Experts say it’s even healthy to vent your anger from time to time. It can also shield us from other people trying to hurt us or someone else.

The problems start when you let your anger get out of hand.

Rampant anger makes you feel like you’re losing control, almost like you’re not yourself. It’s not the best feeling in the world. It often takes its toll on your health, your relationships, as well as your career. It can even get you in trouble with the law.

If you think you’re suffering from a hidden anger problem, then know that recognition is an important part of solving any problem.

Being aware of your anger issues means you’ve taken the first step towards positive change. This self-awareness is also a marker of Emotional Intelligence.

You need to learn how to recognize your anger. You should also know what sets it off. Start by asking yourself these questions:

• What situations/events/places/people make me angry?
• Can I tell when I’m angry?
• How do I react when I’m angry?
• Does my anger affect those around me?

Healthy Anger

Healthy anger is an instinctive signal that lights up when we sense that something isn’t right. If you see someone being hurt or treated unfairly, your anger acts as a catalyst.

So, you immediately start thinking of ways to help.

Dr. Robert M. Fraum, Ph.D. says, “Healthy anger is deliberate, proportional, and responsive to a clear and present need. [it’s] a powerful tool of human survival and adaptation.”

An Emotionally Intelligent person will understand their anger and for the times that they find it challenging, they know how to regain their composure and use anger productively and effectively.

Unhealthy Anger

On the other hand, unhealthy anger hurts everyone around, instead of helping. Remember, if you experience one or more of these behaviors from time to time, it doesn’t mean you have an anger problem.

The problem intensifies according to the frequency of these behaviors and their consequences.

The following are a few ways unhealthy anger can manifest itself in several ways, such as:

• Rage
• Resentment
• Manipulation
• Judgment
• Passive aggression
• Verbal or physical abuse

So do you have a healthy anger or is it unhealthy? Not sure? The next section is relevant to you to identify if you have anger management issues.

5 Common Signs you have an Anger Problem

1.    You frequently get into arguments

We’re not talking about casual arguments you have with your partner or co-worker. We’re talking frequent, overblown rows with everyone you encounter, even strangers.

Not only that, but you feel that you have to win every single argument. Not being able to back down from an argument has nothing to do with what you’re arguing about. It has everything to do with being more domineering and in control.

If these arguments seem to come out of nowhere and quickly spin out of control, that’s a sign your anger has turned into a problem.

2.    You’re Passive Aggressive

People often don’t relate passive aggressiveness with anger because it’s neither loud nor violent.

Yet, it’s one of the most telling signs of anger management issues. The problem is that you might not even realize you’re being passive-aggressive.

Not only that, but you may not even realize you’re angry!

One reason is that when you’re passive-aggressive, your emotions give the impression that you’re in control. For example, you avoid conflict; you’re often sarcastic, or indifferent.

3.    You Blame Others

It’s easier to blame other people for your problems than dealing with them yourself. Remember the saying ‘a bad workman argues with his tools’? That’s exactly what happens here, even if you do it unknowingly.

Another sign of an anger problem is that you hold on to resentment. You stay bitter and can’t seem to forgive even over the small stuff.

4.    People fear your Reactions

If you usually react when you’re angry, people may start avoiding you because they are fearful of you and your over-the-top reactions when you’re mad.

You may notice that when people talk to you, they never come too close. They may also stand with their arms crossed over their chest or they have one foot turned to face the door. This is their way of expressing their fear and anxiety when they’re around you.

5.    You Worry about your Reactions

This is both good and bad news. The bad news is that once you’ve reached this stage, it’s more than likely that you have an anger problem.

The good news is you’re starting to acknowledge that you have a problem and you’re worried about your behavior.

This is the first step to working through your anger issues and gaining control over your emotions.

If you self-identify with one, or more, of these five signs, it means you have an anger problem.

The next step is to do something about it.

Anger Management and Emotional Intelligence

To reiterate, the problem isn’t that you get angry; the problem is in the way you express your anger. While anger is a normal and natural emotion, it can be overwhelming if not dealt with correctly.

There are certain steps you have to go through to be able to cope with your anger in a healthy and productive way.

We’ve rounded up some of these tried-and-true techniques you can try to cope with your anger. You’ve probably heard of some of them, but don’t knock any of them until you’ve tried each one several times.

Remember, the more you practice, the better you’ll get at controlling your anger. So, the next time you’re in a situation that gets your blood boiling, try these tips.

Think happy thoughts, and let’s get started.

Breathe Deeply

Breathing deeply helps you take the time to think about the situation. It gives you time to calm down rather than lashing out immediately.

Taking a few deep breaths also boosts blood flow to your brain. The more oxygen going to your brain, the more rational your thoughts and behavior will be.

Want to take it a step further? Count slowly.

You can count up to 10 as you breathe in and out. Or you can count backwards from 100.

Take the time to think about what number comes next. This effort will shift your focus and distract you from what’s making you angry.

You can also use breathing to manage stress.

When you disconnect yourself from the event that’s making you flustered, you’re less likely to act out.

Taking some time to moderate your anger is a healthy and smart way to manage your anger.

Acknowledge your Emotions

Start by accepting your anger. Tell yourself that it’s okay to be angry, but it’s not okay to let it out on others in a destructive way.

Self-awareness means that you are true to yourself. If you feel there are any negative issues from your past holding you back, find a way to deal with them.

There are several things you can do to move past painful memories, like

• Write your thoughts and feelings in a journal
• Find local support groups
• Counselling or therapy
• Practice yoga and meditation

Look Inward

Reflecting inward can help you see things from a different vantage point. Seeing things from a different viewpoint gives you clarity. As a result, you can deal with the situation in a calm, relaxed manner.

Also, take a moment to ask yourself if the person who angered you actually meant to harm you. Or was it done unintentionally?

Applying the technique of perceptual positions is a terrific coping mechanism. You’ll be able to reach an amicable understanding while being respectful of yourself and others.

Identify your Triggers

We all have certain people or places that make us angry. Just thinking about them makes your temper soar.

To avoid seething with anger each time you’re with someone or in a certain situation, learn your triggers. Start by figuring out what makes you angry.

Once you’ve identified your triggers, you’ll be better equipped at handling them. For example, let’s say you always take a certain route to work, but it’s always congested and that makes you angry.

Why not look for a different route and spare yourself the aggravation of wasting time in traffic?

Engage in Creative Activities

Creative activities like drawing, painting, or playing a musical instrument benefit your mental health. In fact, the more time you spend on creative pastimes, the less angry and stressed you’ll feel.

Other hobbies include physical activities like hiking, kickboxing, and cycling. Even taking a 10-minute in the park can uplift your mental wellbeing.

These activities can help release pent-up negative energy in a healthy and safe way. Not only that, but exercise stimulates your brain to release more feel-good hormones. So, you don’t just get better at controlling your anger, you also feel happier and more.

Final Words on managing Anger with Emotional Intelligence

The most important thing is to know when you can resolve your issue yourself and when it’s time to seek help and support.

Remember, anger is nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about. But it could result in seriously damaging your life or hurting you or someone you love or even adversely impact your career.

The sooner you get the help you need, the sooner you’ll be able to live a healthier, more fulfilling life.

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?

Click here for the Developing Your Self-Awareness Bundle

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.

Anger management was bound to be discussed on social media after Will Smith’s slap was seen and heard around the world.

After Academy Award winner Will Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock during the Oscars Sunday night in response to a joke about Smith’s wife, a worldwide discussion has started. It’s all about how to manage anger before it escalates to violence.

Anger is defined as “an emotional state that varies in intensity from mild irritation to intense fury and rage,” according to Dr. Charles Spielberger, a psychologist who specializes in the study of anger.

It reminded me of the road rage incident that inspired this post years ago and the need to raise our threshold level. It becomes relevant if you’re trying to demonstrate Gravitas and composure is an issue for you.

This guy needs anger management training- like yesterday

I witnessed an amazing anger scene yesterday afternoon while driving home. There I was driving peacefully when the vehicles in front of me slowed down to a crawl thanks to a truck which was blocking the way.

A short while later, I saw an angry young man in a red tee shirt charging towards the truck.

Before I knew it, he had managed to climb up the wheel and was engaged in a fist cuff fight with the truck driver. That too while hanging precariously from the door of the truck!

The man’s anger had made him blind to the immediate consequences of his action.

No thought that this was a busy arterial road where cars were driving by fast. What if the truck driver got it into his head to drive off? He could fall down and get injured. Perhaps fatally?

I don’t know what happened next as I drove on but I did see a policeman walking in that direction. So I’m guessing the angry man would have found a place to cool his heels.

Anger in itself is neither good nor bad.  It depends upon the type of anger.

If the anger leads to constructive actions, then it serves a purpose but if anger is destructive, then it has to be managed.

A powerful tip to raise your threshold level

There are many ways to manage anger but the best ones are those that help to raise our threshold to anger.

One technique is to use the color blue to help raise our resilience to anger.

Blue is cooling and relaxing in nature. A calming color, it is considered well for reducing anger.

Blue is also associated with the throat chakra, which deals with willpower and communication.  The color blue can be used for throat problems, asthma, stress, and migraine.

This week, why not try using the colour blue and see how it affects your mood and anger levels?

I recommend 3 easy ways to test whether blue works for you without anybody even knowing it!

• Try wearing clothes which are predominantly blue –say a blue shirt, blue tie, blue scarf, blue dress and even blue accessories. You don’t have to go completely blue – just an item of clothing or accessory.

• If you feel angry and are practicing breathing methods to calm yourself, enhance your chosen method by visualizing blue colored scenes or objects– a blue sky, a blue ocean, a blue flower while practicing your calming technique.

• Use a blue colored bulb in your lamp. When you want to relax, sit in a room which is otherwise completely dark and switch on your blue light lamp.  You will notice a difference in the relaxation level achieved.

Using colors to manage anger may not be everyone’s cup of tea.

But wouldn’t it be fun to test the color blue for anger management? It might just work for you!

Written By: Vatsala Shukla

Blue Flower by Jon Sullivan

This post was originally published in April 2013 and has been updated.