I’ve been posting a little about anger recently, and some different ways of viewing it in our lives. But why is it important in the context of the voluntary sector workplace?
I reckon there are two main reasons – to avoid damaging our relationships and culture, and to unleash anger’s energy and creativity. Both apply within an organisation – and in relation to the wider world and the work.
1) To avoid harming one another
Anger is natural and normal, just as conflict is natural and normal – both are intrinsic parts of human relationships. As charities and other organisations are (in my view) largely made of relationships, how anger is handled can make a massive difference to the quality of a charity’s culture and its ability to support its people in their already challenging work.
As people bring their whole selves to work, they will also bring everything they’ve learned about anger throughout their lives. And many of the common messages people receive about anger can lead to patterns that erode the quality of colleague relationships.
Some may have learned learned that anger is bad and wrong, or unsafe for them to express. This can mean that they fail to uphold their own boundaries while developing passive-aggressive strategies to let the pain out. Or even explode from time to time, damaging the trust, safety and dignity that are essential to creative workplaces. Others may have learned that their anger is really their only valid emotion. They may use it as a go-to move, again damaging trust and creating a toxic culture.
So the number 1 reason for building capacity to handle anger well is to avoid damaging relationships or exhausting one another.
2) Finding the wisdom, energy and creativity in anger
You probably can think of examples of poorly held or understood anger. Anger that seethes or explodes sideways, damaging the person and the relationships around them.
It’s easy to imagine that the opposite is some kind of coping, or quietism. Like every good anger is a silent, calmed or invisible anger, or that good people are never angry.
On the contrary, there’s much data, wisdom and energy in anger. By reflecting on it, I might find out that my boundaries are being crossed in a way that upsets me. By working out what’s wrong, I can then share it – and assuming there’s a decent level of trust and respect in place (not always possible) – this sharing can increase mutual understanding and strengthen relationship.
In a wider context, working out the ‘what’s wrong’ in our system that my anger is pointing towards can help me to work out where to place that energy for transformation. There’s more to say about linking anger with love to create passion as a renewable resource… for another post!
For now, suffice to say that the number 2 reason for building capacity to handle anger well is to deepen relationships, unleash creativity and direct our transformative energy.
If you’re interested in exploring these ideas further, feel free to join me on Thursday 24th Feb 4.10 – 5.10 pm for a teatime session – ‘5 ways of looking at anger’. Drop me a message and I’ll send you the link – or you can also sign up for the mailing list, below.
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