Permission to be Angry: Anger’s Gift to Leaders of Change
It’s time to stop suppressing your anger, and start harnessing its power for good.
Here are six questions and one poem I use in my leadership facilitation to help you get to know your anger better.
Photo by Yogendra Singh on Unsplash
Consider this message your permission to be angry.
There's much for us to be angry about in the world right now...
The persistence of injustice, at a large scale and small.
The sanctioning of senseless violence.
The hypocrisy and abject moral failure of our leaders.
*Don't get me started*
And yet, from a young age, we learn that anger is dangerous. Unwelcome. A sure-fire way to rejection.
So we learn to repress it, ignore it, or explain it away.
In leadership coaching sessions or facilitated conversations with their colleagues, I watch leaders do their best to conceal rising anger about things that really matter to them.
I watch as they attempt to hide their indignation, getting increasingly frustrated and blocked.
I watch as their hands shake, their voices waiver, and their bodies struggle to contain (rather than channel) the fire of indignation
And sometimes, I watch them burst forth with unskilful expressions of anger that cause harm and hurt. Cue a spiral of guilt and shame, which they associate with the anger itself, rather than the behaviour its suppression caused.
So I ask them, and I ask you now...
What if your anger has a purpose?
What if, rightly channelled, it be a superpower to you as a leader. Yes, even in a professional context.
Anger: Protector of Boundaries
In her extraordinary book 'The Language of Emotions' Karla McLaren argues that every emotion is a messsenger with something to say. Anger's message is that your boundaries have been crossed and require asserting again:
'Anger sets your boundaries by walking the perimeter of your soul and keeping an eye on you, the people around you, and your environment. If your boundaries are broken (through the insensivity of others or in any other way), anger comes forward to restore your sense of strength and separateness. The questions for anger are: 'What must be protected?' and 'What must be restored?'
So if a leader is committed to protection (people, values, space) and restoration (mediation, conflict resolution, resolution), they have a duty to understand how to channel their own anger, and the anger of their people, to create healthy boundaries.
6 Questions to Access your Anger's Message
Inspired by my coaching and facilitation work, here are 6 reflection questions to help you start unlocking the messages your anger brings.
In invite you to answer them in writing, or with a trusted Co-Conspirator who will welcome rather than dismiss your anger.
1) What has sparked my anger?
2) What sensations in my body tell me anger is present?
3) If my anger were personified, what shape would it take, and what would it have to say?
4) What is my value/boundary that has been dishonoured? (There may be more than one)
5) To honour my value/boundary, what boundaries/requests do I need to remake of others?
6) How can I prepare or resource myself to have these conversations, so that my anger is present to fuel my boundaries, but not burn the house down?
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Here's a poem I wrote to express my anger recently, in answer to Question 3 above.
I hope it gives you more permission to get to know yours.
No More Fig Leaves for my Fury
Debbie Danon, 2022
My anger is not
Misbehaviour.
The fire I’m spitting is no
Oversensitivity.
You dare to turn my wrath into your yardstick,
A rod to beat me with.
My anger is fire.
It won’t be measured or subdued.
If you want my integrity
My anger comes too.
My boundaries were crossed
And now I’ll protect what I must
As if my life depends on their defence.
Because, in a way, it does.
No more simpering.
No more diminishing.
No more absurd disguises,
Pouts
Tears…
‘I’m disappointed’
‘I’m resentful’
‘I’m sad’
They have their own true colours
But I’ll make them decoys no more.
No more fig-leaves for my fury.
Let’s call a bloody spade
a
bloody
spade.
Let’s be acid clear.
The vinegar on my tongue
Is as much me as the sugar.
I have commitments
I will not yield.
If you can recognise my boundaries
Learn to honour them and adapt
Perhaps the tunnel of fire leads us to greener ground.
But if you can’t respect my lines,
There’s peace in that.
There’s the door.
Don’t let my boundary burn you on your way out.
Do you find that anger is holding you back?
Is unvoiced frustration disrupting your team's ability to perform together?
Are you ready to move beyond anger, but struggling to know how?
Let’s talk.
I would love to help you and your team unlock anger’s gifts, and use its power to unleash full-force flourishing.
