Incidents in the workplace can leave employees infuriated, angry, stressed and frustrated.

You could become angry because your boss berates you or a trivial workplace dispute can get out of hand.. The first thing you will want to do when angry is to take it out on the person causing the anger but this is obviously not the right thing to do.

A wise man once said, “it is not what happens to us that matters but how we react to them”.

How you handle anger in the workplace can determine many things including your future promotion, productivity and your continued employment .

Effects of Anger

Anger at work has a lot of potential unintended outcomes. It can cause financial and productivity loss both to you and your co-workers. Anger can also cause prolonged confusion and psychological trauma. It can also cause outbursts in a workplace such as a riot and a strike. Now those are extremes but consider time wastage, absenteeism, and loss of morale.

What To Do When Angry

Rather than flaring up and tainting your self-image when angry, you can do a few things to save the day. Here are some proven approaches to control your anger.

Take a Deep Breath: The first thing you may want to do is to pause and take a deep breath – perhaps count to 10.. This will not probably take away the source of the anger but it will buy you time to think straight and make a better decision not to follow your emotions.

Write Out Your Thoughts: Instead of venting out your thoughts and emotions, you can write them down and keep them to yourself. This will help you to release the emotions but at the same time, no one feels the impact. Saving your thoughts when angry in an (unsent!) email can also serve as a reference in the future.

Listen to your favourite song: When infuriated, you need something to calm you down. You need to get your thoughts totally detached from the event that caused the anger and think of something that gives you happiness. Music has a way of soothing the nerves and calming us down, so listening to your favourite song can help you get over the moment.

What would your role model do: Who is your role model? A parent? Someone in business perhaps? Considering what they would do in these circumstances can help us get over a difficult time and might avoid hasty actions.

And remember, Mayfair Cares.