Truth 27. Controlling your temper is a labor-saving device
What’s your hot button? What puts you at risk of losing it? Losing sight of the cost/benefit ratio of acting out on your anger? Dealing with petty, immature skirmishes between employees who snookered you into thinking they were adults?
When people stand in your doorway with “Can we talk?” written on their face, rarely are they bearing a basket of kitten kisses and posies for you. When it’s a petty interpersonal hiccup, you’ll hear about it. If there is a stupid person doing indifferent, sloppy, and thoughtless work, you’ll hear about it. If someone has discovered that there is a lot of currency to be had for being perpetually and righteously outraged, you hear about it. And you’ll be expected to do something about it.
How many times in your career so far have you been tempted to holler, “What are we, in Kindergarten” This is where you might lose your cool.
When people stand in your doorway with “Can we talk?” written on their face, rarely are they bearing a basket of kitten kisses and posies for you.
It’s tempting to assume here that if you have achieved managerial status you’ve probably already dealt with whatever hair-trigger emotions you might have. But you and I both have seen too many instances of managers with a low boiling point not to think that a little introspection now and then might be a good idea.
Losing your cool puts you at risk of losing more than just your temper. It strains trust between you and your employees. You totally lose your dignity (which is significant when you’re trying to manage on a platform of level-headed leadership). It wounds tender feelings, sometimes irreparably (and maybe even feloniously). It can shatter trust. And it gives your employees something to laugh at you about. Behind your back.
So, no matter where you are in your professional journey, maybe it’s time to quickly review and tweak how you react to triggering situations. Or pass this truth on to someone who might benefit from it—and then duck:
• Be your own fly on the wall. Researchers at Ohio State University and the University of Michigan call it self-distancing. In a study, they found that putting yourself in a mindset in which you’re viewing the situation at an imaginary distance helps protect yourself from getting caught up in a web of escalating fury. Taking a mental step back can help you temper your rage.
• Give yourself time to react. Their emergency doesn’t have to be your emergency, unless you allow it. Unless the situation has something to do with a building on fire, you can likely wait 24 to 48 hours before making a considered pronouncement on the matter being shoved into your face.
• Know the difference between the facts and your interpretation of what’s behind the behavior. Managers need to be insightful about human behavior and motivation. That doesn’t mean you have to be a mind-reader. It just means to follow the advice of that bumper sticker spotted on many a hippie van: Don’t believe everything you think.
• Make someone else’s problem... someone else’s problem. You can provide an ear, but you don’t always have to provide a solution.
• Know what your boundaries are and expect everyone to respect them—including yourself. When you’re confident that you have the power to honor yourself and your own needs in the little ways that the people in your workday try to chisel away at your boundaries, you know that you can afford to stay powerfully calm when facing down the big-stakes issues. Then those little straws won’t pile up, which means that there will be no last straw to ignite your own personal kaboom.
• Don’t lose sight of what you really want in the long run. If your immediate emotional reaction has even the slightest tinge of self-righteousness to it, dollars to donuts that acting out on that reaction will move you further away from your objectives. While you’re giving yourself time to react (see the second bulleted point in this list), review exactly what your end game is and whether your emotions are supporting that end game.
So, in answer to your question, yes, we are in kindergarten. In management, sometimes you’re the kindergartener, sometimes you’re the teacher. It won’t always be your job to make every booboo all better. But it is always your job not to make it any worse.