Rage in the Workplace: A Matter of Helplessness

Though it would appear that the world of business is populated by adults this is at best only partially true. Unfortunately, I have witnessed the most infantile behavior from people who otherwise would seem to be of age. In one company I had a boss who routinely yelled at me and was reputed to have thrown a typewriter out the window. In another I heard my employer say of someone he didn't like that he was going to remove his genitals and force them down his throat -- though admittedly in somewhat less delicate terms. And in a third I saw a member attack the chairman of the board in an attempt to humiliate and remove him from office. Each case was not only an act of agression. Each case was also an act of regression in which a would-be adult turned into a child.

To understand more clearly what happened in these moments, it's helpful to remember what it's like to be two. Imagine that you are no more than 18 inches tall. You come up to your parents' thighs, chairs and tables look like mountains, and the family boxer outweighs you by 25 pounds. You know what you want but barely know how to say it. The world feels often dangerous and beyond your control.

Now, imagine that you're sitting in a cart at the market. Your mother is pushing you, and you see a balloon. You like the balloon. You want the balloon. You point to the balloon and shout, "Balloon!" Your mother says, "That's right! That's a balloon!" but keeps pushing her cart without stopping to get it. Again you say, "Balloon!" This time even louder. But your mother keeps going despite your insistence. Frantic, you shout "Balloon!!!" and burst into tears. You gesture wildly and start screaming at the top of your lungs. All to no avail. Your mother doesn't stop.

Two things happen to you in this moment. First, you encounter the limits of your power. The fact that you are unable to change the situation. Second, you experience a feeling of helplessness. A response to the fact that your power is limited. This combination proves to be overwhelming. It's scary to discover that you don't have control. And it's painful to feel helpless in the face of this discovery.

Anything is better than this state of affairs. Immediately, your fear and helplessness give way to anger. Adrenaline fills your veins as your fury starts to mount, and you feel increasingly powerful and even invincible. Big and strong enough to take on the world. Superman, the Hulk, and Spiderman in one. You talk louder, gesture wildly, cry, and then scream. Now for sure you will get what you want. No helplessness here. Just Herculean force. At least until your mother walks past the balloons and replaces your fantasy of omnipotence with impotence.

My boss, my employer, and the member of the board all regressed before me to childlike states of mind. They encountered situations they thought they couldn't change. And as a result they experienced feelings of helplessness. These feelings were immediately displaced by waves of anger which swelled to fantasies of deadly omnipotence. Their acts of aggression were acts of regression designed to reverse overwhelming realities and the intolerable feelings to which they gave rise.

Understanding this sequence can be enormously useful in sorting out the behavior of those with anger issues. To be able to recognize in the face of someone's rage that they are probably drowning in feelings of helplessness can keep you from launching a counterattack. Such an attack only tends to make bad conditions worse. You become the casualty of their anger and thus evidence of their omnipotence or the agent of their defeat and thus evidence of their impotence. Either way, one of you gets hurt in the process, and the underlying situation isn't addressed.

A better choice is for you to disengage from the conflict until the groundswell of anger has had a chance to subside. Only then will it be possible to look at the situation and figure out if there are really no options to pursue. Sometimes, of course, this is the case. And difficult decisions need to be made. But often there are choices, if not always ideal, that lose visibility in the fog of helplessness. In a calmer state of mind, these choices appear and make an impossible situation feel much more acceptable.

Of course, none of us is exempt from moments of rage that arise in the face of feelings of helplessness brought on by circumstances that seem beyond our control. But just as we want to understand this state in others, so we want to understand this state in ourselves -- and to do what we can to find solid land. First, by stepping back and acknowledging that we're angry. Second, by observing that we probably feel helpless. Third, by asking ourselves if we are as helpless as we feel. And fourth, by figuring out if there are tenable options. If there are we will discover that we have more power than we thought. And if there aren't we will have to deal with the disappointment and loss that invariably accompany the experience of failure. But this in its own way is a mark of success. The success of emerging from child to adult with the capacity to think about our most painful feelings and mindfully to act on the basis of these reflections.