The Cost of Anger in the Workplace

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Do you work with angry people? Do you know why they are angry? Do you know how to deal with them?

The workplace is an environment likely to provoke feelings of anger and the consequences of poorly manages anger in the workplace can range from increased turnover and reduces productivity to property damage and physical injury or worse. At the same time, if managed effectively, anger can be a positive and productive emotion producing valuable data, as well as considerable motivation.

The costs of anger in the workplace can be devastating. Indeed, for many people the subject immediately evokes headlines of workplace shootings with terrible casualties. Such tragedies bear the highest price, from loss of life, serious injury and psychological trauma to loss of productivity, property damage and lingering confusions. They exemplify the most extreme, the most costly and the most attention-getting manifestation of anger: actual violence. Fortunately, this is also the least common of anger’s many forms. Most angry feelings never result in violence. However, they can still be very costly if poorly managed.

The costs of non-violence anger in the workplace stem from cold, festering anger as well as angry outbursts; from anger that is expressed indirectly as well as directly and even from anger that is never expressed at all. However it is difficult to calculate the monetary value of direct and indirect costs to individuals and organizations, we can enumerate some of the leading costly impacts of poorly managed anger.

Impacts on the Angry Person

Anger in the individual causes strong emotional and physical functioning. Poorly manager anger, then can damage your career and if the anger is chronic, it can result in long-term health problems.

Here are the specifics:

Immediate Emotional Components of Anger

Increased impulsiveness
Increased feeling of dominance
Increased animation
Diminished caution
Diminished ability to reason

Immediate Physical Components of Anger

Adrenal glands release.
Epinephrine surges.
Heart beats faster.
Blood pressure rises.
Muscles in chests, back and arms may tense up.
Body may sweat; flush or pate; feel clammy.

The Results of Anger: Potential Career Problems

Individuals carry secret or open grudges against you.
You get a reputation for losing your temper.
You get a reputation for abusing others.
You become a target of lawsuits and not juridical hearings.
You get a reputation for making judgment errors in the heat of the moment.
Those with grudges against you try to thwart your explicit goals.
People are less likely to want to work with you or for you.
Risk-averse senior management tries to avoid having you on their projects.
Clients, customers and vendors try to avoid contact with you.

Impact on the work group and organization

Anger’s costs for the work group and organization for beyond the angry person. First, the target of the anger suffers considerable effects. Second, all those who are proximate to the angry relationship become susceptible to negative consequences. Third, the organization suffers not only from the diminished commitment and effort of the affected individuals, but also from the radiating impact of poorly managed anger.

Source and references: Managing Anger in the Workplace