Is anger at work always bad?

One of the most read HRD articles gives advice on how to calm an angry employee but is anger always a bad thing ?
A sturdy by Texas A&M university finds that people who are anger perform better on a set of challenging tasks than those who are emotionally neutral.  ( Guardian 31/10/23 )  So would an Angry Manager be more effective?
In most HR articles the focus is on how to deal with an angry boss. Because an angry boss is a bad boss. I suppose most people would think an angry boss is one who shouts and swears at their staff, slams doors , throws things, gets thats wild look in their eyes and is very scary when they lose it.
But shouldn’t a good manager care and if you care then you are are going to experience disappointment, frustration and annoyance when things happen that shouldn’t happen, when people let you down, let the service down, let themselves down. For example you’re a manager of a group of residential care homes and it comes to light that some staff have been systematically cruel to those vulnerable individuals they were employed to care for. Isn’t anger the right response?
Would it not be right to get angry on discovering a new young member of the team had been subjected to racial abuse from colleagues? What about a member of staff who is rude and unhelpful to a valued customer( or any customer)? So is the problem not getting angry but how the manager expresses their angry or in the case of this research how they channel that strength of feeling.
As a former senior manager who recruited manager in social services I don’t want managers who don’t care. I don’t want managers who are ,” emotionally neutral” in the face of abuse or a failure of services. I think a social service Director should get angry very angry that a frail elderly person has been left for hours in a cold urine soaked bed because the home care service was short staffed.
I don’t want bad tempered managers who abuses their employees but give me someone who cares enough to get angry over someone who is emotionally neutral every time.

    Read more

    Latest News

    Read More

    Building a wellbeing strategy that supports recruitment and retention

    20 January 2025

    Newsletter

    Receive the latest HR news and strategic content

    Please note, as per the GDPR Legislation, we need to ensure you are ‘Opted In’ to receive updates from ‘theHRDIRECTOR’. We will NEVER sell, rent, share or give away your data to third parties. We only use it to send information about our products and updates within the HR space To see our Privacy Policy – click here

    Latest HR Jobs

    University of Oxford – Humanities DivisionSalary: £55,636 to £64,228 (Grade 9)

    If you are interested in this role, please contact Steve Davies, HR Director –. Management of the HR Metrics service providing HR information, analytics and

    Circa £90’000:London Councils:The HR Director & London Regional Employers’ Secretary manages the regional employers’ organisation to ensure it supports London boroughs by sharin.

    Circa £90’000:London Councils:The HR Director & London Regional Employers’ Secretary manages the regional employers’ organisation to ensure it supports London boroughs by sharin.

    Read the latest digital issue of theHRDIRECTOR for FREE

    Read the latest digital issue of theHRDIRECTOR for FREE