Managing Emotional Reactions at Work | by Adaobi Nwachuku

Adaobi Nwachuku is a Project Management Apprentice at Barnet Council and is writing for the Apprentice Lens.

“Be ye angry and sin not”: Managing Emotional reactions at work. “Be ye angry and sin not”! Pertinent advice from Paul to the Ephesians circa 60 AD, is relevant today and for as long as there are humans and workplaces. As humans, we are emotional beings with emotions that need to be expressed from time to time. Can we do this in the workplace where we spend a third of the 24 hours we are given in a workday without appearing weak and unprofessional? Sometimes I feel like the only emotion people are allowed to express at work is that of the professional android. A bit of an exaggeration I know, but we have all seen the shouting angry boss or the bad-tempered manager. Chances are that more often than not, they are seen as crazy, out of control, bullies or just hormonal if they happen to be female. Right or wrong, folks form non-flattering opinions when they witness people express extreme emotion at work.

Nevertheless, we all have emotions which need to be expressed appropriately if for nothing else, for the sake of our mental health. Employees identified frustration and stress as the top two negative emotions felt at work . Frustration is the top negative emotion, and I will classify the emotion of anger under this. Now being angry at work and not expressing this appropriately can be devastating. I agree that for some of people, myself firmly included, (I know the kind of things I would love to say in some situations), acting out can be more than a little gratifying, but like most people, having a mortgage and mouths to feed, means the expression of emotions at work need to be modulated. This is where the biblical text instruction, ‘Be ye angry, and sin not’* is crucial. The text acknowledges that one can be angry, but admonishes not to do anything one might regret. I have personally witnessed people lose their jobs because they acted out and quit while angry, only to come back the next day to ask for their jobs back and as far as I know, none of them got that particular job back.

On a less dramatic reaction and outcome, I am emotional and reactive, one of those fastest fingers on the text buttons response people. If something is sent to me, sometimes before my brain has assimilated, dissected, assessed, computed, and understood the information, I have fired off a response. A lot of the time, the response is disproportionate, inappropriate to the text, or just unnecessary. Unfortunately, I do not leave this trait at home when I go to work or reserve it for annoying social interactions.

I pride myself in my strong work ethic and am sensitive to anything that looks like disrespect where my work is concerned. So when I received an email which in my perspective was disrespecting my work, the rage I felt was off the Richter Scales. This email was received from a colleague who I had very little interaction with, copying in the world, his wife, and our external contractors, implying that my actions or lack of, was the reason for the delays in a key project.

Well, my fingers of fury went to work on a response, copying in all the recipients this colleague had copied into their original email to me, letting them know where the project was and what I thought the sender should have done instead of firing out that email and copying every Tom, Dick, and Harry in. Yes, I was informing them of where the project was, but the raging part of me wanted to make them (the sender) look as silly as I perceived they had tried to make me look. The same fingers pressed send before I could change my mind.

Once that email was sent and could not be called back, I felt a tinge of regret. I did not like how they had gone about things, but hadn’t I just done the same thing? However, before the regret had time to settle, I received yet another and even more belittling (in my opinion) email from them and guess who responded again in fury? Me!

This last response from me seemed to have done the trick, because the next set of emails I received from them were polite and friendly, and only colleagues connected to the project copied in.

When another inquiry came from them, I picked up the phone to have a conversation, and we had a respectful and pleasant conversation which moved the project forward.

Clearly, boundaries had been set here, but the question is…. Did I need to go the route I went to get the results I got? No, I did not. I could have handled things differently. I could have picked up the phone to have a conversation when I received the first email, and not worried about the impression everyone copied into the first email may or may not have of me. I also believe that if this happened when we were all working in the office, I would have been able to discuss the initial email with a colleague before responding, and perhaps my response would have been different.

As human beings (which I hope we all are), it is guaranteed that we will feel emotions including negative ones at work. For a start, we spend most of our hours at work and are bound to feel the highs of achieving something good, the frustrations of things like projects not going our way or little frustrations of dealing with different personalities in the workplace. The rigours of work can make us feel mad, sad, frustrated, overwhelmed etc. and for the sake of staying mentally healthy, there should be no shame in the appropriate expression of these emotions.

Inappropriate expression or overreaction could be harmful and will not move the work/ project forward, is not respectful to colleagues and is damaging to one’s reputation. Like I mentioned earlier, I have witnessed people lose their jobs when reacting in anger. There is a clear need for courses tackling the softer work skills.

Even though we had good outcomes with the situation I described earlier, in hindsight, could my response have been better? Of course. If it were to happen now (that I know better), this is how (I would like to think) I will handle it.

1. Email received: I am too furious to read and digest properly. Walk away and do something else, perhaps make a cup of tea.
2. 10 minutes later, I am back at my desk, looking at email again and I am still upset. Write an angry response, get it all out of my system. DO NOT PRESS SEND!
3. Drink tea while reading email in a different tone, (maybe in Betty Boop’s voice, …. whatever helps).
4. Then assess my feelings, asking myself what I really feel, and why? Talk to a colleague, friend or family member about it, asking how they would respond if it were them.
5. When constructing a response, assess my motivations behind the response…am I trying to give back the perceived slight or am I being factual and giving helpful information? Am I setting the appropriate boundaries? (I certainly do not want anyone thinking they can send disrespectful emails to me). Will the response move the work/ project forward?
6. Or just pick up the phone (Much much much later!), because a conversation is always nicer and less prone to be misunderstood.
   
   So yes, be ye angry but sin not.
   
   *Ephesians 4:26 KJV bible.

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