Screaming at your cat? Forgivable. Screaming at your boyfriend? Understandable. Screaming at your colleagues? Totally and utterly unacceptable.

Or is it? Is it possible to get angry at work without losing your professionalism, credibility - and your job?
Mark Rolle, head of HR at the British firm Lester Aldridge LLP, coaches employees to deal with anger in the workplace and says that the best way to avoid getting cross is to stay calm. "Take a deep breath and think about the issue from the other person's point of view," he says. "Work out why there's a difference of opinion. The process of rationalising takes the heat out of the thing and allows you to approach it in a more structured way."

Of course, by the time you've done all that empathising, rationalising and structuring, you're unlikely to be angry anyway. So is Rolle really saying that it's never OK to be angry? "Once you get to the point of being cross, you are on the verge of losing it," he says. "You have to observe the line between assertive and angry if you want to get your point across."

Admittedly, throwing a wobbly in the middle of the working day as the entire office looks on is not an ideal scenario. Neither is turning purple, crying and slamming all the doors on your way out.
Christopher Shen, a Melbourne organisational psychologist, says there are lawful limits to which employees and managers can demonstrate emotions such as anger to employees in the workplace.
"It is unlawful to vilify, belittle or abuse other staff under Commonwealth statutory law," Shen says.

While it may be cathartic for a staff member to display anger, Shen says scientific research indicates it is likely to be detrimental. "It is more helpful for an angry employee to remain composed and to consider calmer ways to communicate," Shen says. "Anger towards others is most often received as threatening behaviour, which evokes destructive, defensive and aggressive responses."

But Dr Sandi Mann, senior lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire and author of Anger Management In A Week, reckons that we could do with getting angry a bit more often.
"It is OK to get cross at work," she says. "If your colleague has repeatedly failed to pass on a message or is continually late with reports - the sorts of things that are more than just irritations - then getting angry can be a useful communication tool. If you don't express your anger, they won't know. What's not OK is losing your temper - in countries like [Australia and Britain] we don't like extreme displays of emotion, so you have to keep your anger controlled and appropriate."

Controlled and appropriate anger, that's an impossibility, surely? Apparently not. Astonishingly, there are people - anecdotally at least - who have managed to pull it off. Donna Miller, a director at Enterprise Rent-A-Car, recalls a boss who turned the art of getting angry into, well, art.

"My boss never closed her office door, so if she invited you in and closed the door, you knew you were in for it. When it happened to me ... I felt terrible," Miller says. "But once she was done, she asked if I wanted to go out for a drink after work - she knew that people make mistakes and that once you've said it's unacceptable and what they need to do to put it right, you move on."

So how does one get cross well? "Phone and email are not the best way to do it," Miller says, "because there is room for miscommunication. I don't think it's ever appropriate to use foul language, to do it in front of other employees or to humiliate or bully anyone in the process."

It's also tricky for women to show anger, as Mann explains. Where a man showing anger is seen as assertive, women often tend to be seen as hysterical and weak. "Lower your voice. People tend to raise their voices in volume and pitch when they're angry and that can come across as squeaky and girlie," Mann says.

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