November 2, 2022 • 13 mins
In today's episode, I'll unpick an odd trend around leaders losing their temper and answer the question: is losing your temper at work good leadership?
We'll unpack the question, discuss strategies and give you practical tips to take away and apply back with your own team.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Travis Thomas (00:01):
Ahoy legend.
Welcome to the team buffalopodcast. I'm your host, Travis
Thomas. Today's episode, asalways is around a theme. So I'm
never going to talk about aspecific coaching conversation
that I had with individuals,because that's not what we do.
Nor would that be good for theprocess or respectful to the
leader. But what I can do andwhat I love doing, and I'm sure
(00:21):
you get great benefit out ofotherwise you wouldn't keep
listening, is when we takethemes, things that I'm seeing
across multiple leaders ormultiple organizations, and
really start to unpack what theh3ll is going on? And why is
this happening? And what whatcan you do about it that will
give you some practical adviceand tips that you can take away
(00:42):
and make sense of it.
Ultimately, as a leader, youhave to pick the things that you
decide are useful or not useful.
It's only for you to make thatdecision. But what I do think
you have a responsibility to doand you're doing this right now
is to go well, what's happeningaround me, and what behaviors
might I be doing the same thingas others are doing, and what's
(01:04):
useful? What's practical, whatbuilds me to the right
direction, that I'm trying to beas a leader, because ultimately,
you will have goals, you want tobe a better leader, or you want
to be promoted, or you want toretain people or want higher
pay, whatever it is, if youdon't understand the drivers of
that economic and career enginefor yourself, there's no way
(01:26):
you're going to be able to takecontrol and move it forward. So
in saying that, and on the backof talking about control, good a
good topic for today. Andtoday's topic is around losing
your bikies as a leader. Now, ifyou're not in Australia, which
some listeners are not bikies istemper, you know, lose, losing
your mind and getting a littlebit feral, I would say it's
(01:48):
probably a good term for going abit feral or going a bit rogue.
What the h3ll does that mean?
How could that even behappening? You'd be shocked. The
number of times I hear aboutleaders losing their mind doing
certain things, and particularlyin this example, throwing things
when they get angry, throwingthings at the wall and saying,
(02:10):
you know, it's this is bull$hit.
I've had enough of it. And theteam just kind of sat there in
the corner going, what theh3ll's going on? Or, Oh, here he
goes again. So today's topic islosing your temper and your
bookies. Now, before I go intoany level of tactics and
considerations, I think it'simportant to understand what
dynamic does it create in theworkplace and in your immediate
(02:32):
team, when you behave that way?
You might think, oh, you know,Travis, it's useful if I show
people that I'm upset, or I'vehad enough of this $hit that's
going on, and I want them toknow, I'm angry, it's useful.
They know that when I'm pissed,I'm pissed. Well, that's a nice
theory. But a couple ofcomplicating factors that you
(02:53):
may or may not have consideredif you're sat in that camp. One
is that we're in one of the mosthighly mobile workforces in the
history of humanity. And that'snot an exaggeration. And by
mobile, I mean, if I don't likeyour bad temper, or your
ridiculous work ethics, orwhatever thing you're inflicting
upon me, as a leader, or aculture or hole of organization
(03:15):
approach, I will go, and notonly will I go, but by the time
the door closes, the one infront of me will be opening to
another role at an equivalentsalary if not better, in
probably a competingorganization. So I'd say that's
the first bit, you cannot expectpeople to stay and endure the
same things that they might havetolerated 10 or 15 years ago,
(03:36):
you know, I remember when Istarted back in my first
corporate role in a fortune 500company. And some of the
behaviors, particularly at thedirector level, were appalling.
I had some really great leaders,some really great senior
leaders, all the way at the VPlevel that I spent time with,
and were phenomenal mentors andleaders in their own right. But
(03:57):
there were also leaders at thedirector and senior manager
level who were atrocious. Theyhad bad habits, they had
tempers, they lost their mindand meetings, it was terrible.
So people aren't putting up withthat. That's the first bit the
mobility. Second is, do youreally want to build a culture
where people think thatemotional volatility is an
(04:18):
effective tool for achieving anoutcome? I mean, what a
destructive way to run anorganization, I don't get what I
want. So I'm going to amp it up,turn up the heat enough that
people around me getuncomfortable and I'll get what
I want. That's completelyineffective. Instead, skills
like influence and negotiationand give and take and social
(04:39):
capital all are far moreeffective. So I want you to
consider those who are talkingabout opening this conversation
with some of the fallaciesaround your timber being an
effective strategy. It's not andwe're to the point where that
stuff ends up on the internetand it's really bad for your
personal and organizationalbrand. Cool
(05:00):
So if we can agree that there'sdanger in this approach, what
does it do to your immediateteam? So I've talked about the
possibility of people moving butthe impact to your immediate
team. First is concern. I thinkit's I haven't seen this pattern
of behavior before. It'ssomething you're newly adopting
concern. I don't know why thisperson is behaving that way, I
(05:22):
don't understand why they'rebehaving that way. I don't know
why they don't have control overthe thing they're doing. And is
it okay that this is ourbehavior? Can I do the same
thing? Or am I afraid of othersdoing the same thing. So that's
the immediate team impact. Thefirst few times after that it
becomes a, this person is justone of those people who loses
(05:44):
their mind from time to time,and that has a really negative
impact. Think about have youever worked for someone like
that I have, I've had two,three, at least three, I can
remember without wasting toomuch time on at least three, I
can remember where they had apattern of this temper and
throwing tantrums or just beingoutrageous in the way in which
(06:05):
they passed on feedback. And Ididn't want to be around those
people. So I went from Oh, iseverything okay to oh, they
just, they're horrible to bearound. And for one of the
three, the thing that wasinteresting is they were never
upset with the team, they werenever terrible towards the team,
they behaved really kindly toeveryone that was reported to
(06:26):
them. But when the organizationsent big announcements around,
or they were not talked to, orbrought into the fold, or just
even really worked through ifthey could contribute to a
particular issue, basically, ifthey were left out, if they were
set to the side, left out of theengagement, or some level of
consultation, then they wouldlose it, they would throw $hit
(06:48):
at the wall, the big I can'tbelieve incorporates done this.
Again, I wasn't asked I wasn'tconsulted, I wasn't thought of
I'm just not important here.
Now, pause that step to theother side. As an employee
watching that unfold, you canalmost turn your head and look
as if you're watching that ifyou're in your car, the person
in the passenger seats doingthat. What would you be
(07:10):
thinking? If you think thisperson is either crazy week, in
that they have no influence, ornot someone I should be
following. Because if they'reweak, they're not going to get
done the stuff we need to getdone. And no one wants to work
for a weak leader. I'm notsaying weak versus strong as an
masculine and flexing muscles.
(07:31):
I'm talking about ability toaffect change effectively. And
if you're not someone who's incontrol, and can influence
stakeholders, then how is thatgoing to affect our careers as
team members? And what is thatgoing to mean for us? I think
that's really dangerous. Soyou've got those kind of
immediate impacts to the team,you've got the longer term
(07:52):
impacts to the teams, you've gotthe interesting macro trends
that are affecting that, thatwe've covered. So we've got
those three kind of ticked offin the way. So what do you do,
like you're human, you're goingto be affected. I've personally
been affected by, you know, beenin board meetings and previous
company, where I was managingdirector of that organization.
(08:14):
And I remember being outragedseveral times, but never losing
it. And there was only one timewhere I allowed that to be
shown. And I didn't do it out ofbeing out of control. I did it
as a declarative to other ownersin the business. So there were
multiple partners in thebusiness, to let them know that
this issue had gone too far. Andthat it was a really controlled,
(08:36):
I didn't blame or yell or and Ijust said that, If this
continues, you know, expletive,blah, blah, blah, we're going to
have a far more seriousconversation about the
implications of this reallyheavy handed because I had said
it, I'd emailed it. I alluded toit. And it wasn't breaking
through amongst, you know,people who are essentially peers
(08:57):
that were owners in the businessas well, although I was the
managing director, so it was thekind of first in line. And I
think that's actually I know,for a fact, that's the only time
in my 15 year leadership journeywhere I've used anger, but I
used it really effectively andin the opportune time for an
incredibly important issue thatI just could not let go and I
(09:19):
could let continue to drag on.
Now the difference between doingthat and throwing $hit at the
wall men corporate this andwhatever else is that the first
one, the one that I've justexplained to you where I did it,
and not saying that I'm alwaysright. But in this particular
example, what that does, is itshows that look, I've been kind
of been friendly. I've triedeverything I can to manage this.
(09:41):
I'm actually going to have to bepretty aggressive now because
you've given me no otheroption. If you do that in a
tiny, tiny fraction of apercentage of the time, it will
be highly effective. It's notabout being abusive. It's not
about being toxic or bullying.
None of those things, it's aboutreally, really controlled,
(10:01):
aggressive event where you pushpeople towards the issue that
you need to be resolved. Butaside from that, throwing stuff,
losing it, whatever it is noteffective. So what can you do
instead? First is to consideryour moment. So if you're going
to still adopt that as astrategy, or if like me, you do
need to use that once in a whileyou it's almost like, you get a
(10:22):
Get Out of Jail Free card,right? Think of it that way. If
this were monopolies, you haveone, maybe two shots to use
that. And then it's gone. If youdo it more than that, it either
loses its effect, or peoplestart to get really
uncomfortable with thisenvironment. So consider that
way. Second is, if you arefeeling angry about things you
don't have control of, you needto have a deeper reflective
(10:44):
exercise with yourself around.
One, what do I need to do to tryto affect change, because I'm
not getting what I want. So inthe example of the person who
was throwing things, they arenot taking control. They in the
specific examples, they clearlyand that leader had, they
clearly were not driving change,they were not making an effort,
they were grumpy around theirteam and showing that they're
(11:05):
upset that they weren't havingthose direct conversations with
the people who they thought werepushing them to the side. So you
either need to one have thoseconversations, or two you need
to consider is that the type ofplace or environment or team or
sub team, you know, there'soptions to move bosses or teams
within an organization that Iwant to be part of do I want to
(11:26):
be a leader in an organizationwhere I'm not trusted, I'm not
consulted. And I don't have theability to affect meaningful
change. Because no one gives a$hit about my opinion, I'm not
asked. I think that's important.
So first is when can I use theanger or controlled emotions
really effectively? And then thesecond is, do I feel like this
(11:46):
is an OK arrangement? Do I feellike I'm valued to the level and
consulted to the level that Ineed to be? Or is this something
ready to go? I'm sick of it.
This isn't fair, I haven'tsigned up for this, I need to
make a meaningful change toescape this pattern of behavior
on my team. And I think that's areally important thing. And if
you don't feel like you can havethat control, then it's
(12:07):
definitely something you owe toyourself, if not definitely your
team to try and affect changeon. So to summarize, today,
we've talked about the dangersof that pattern of behavior with
employees on the team and theculture crates. We've talked
about the career implicationsfor you and how that sends
signals of what kind of leaderyou are. And we've talked about
some tactics around how you cancontrol those emotions by
(12:31):
understanding the root cause andmaking decisions around those
root causes. Thank you fortuning into today's episode.
I've been your host, TravisThomas. You can check out more
on our website at teambuffalo.co And I look forward to
seeing you in tomorrow's episodewhere we address one leadership
question or topic for the day.
Keep being awesome.
Ahoy legend.
Welcome to the team buffalopodcast. I'm your host, Travis
Thomas. Today's episode, asalways is around a theme. So I'm
never going to talk about aspecific coaching conversation
that I had with individuals,because that's not what we do.
Nor would that be good for theprocess or respectful to the
leader. But what I can do andwhat I love doing, and I'm sure
(00:21):
you get great benefit out ofotherwise you wouldn't keep
listening, is when we takethemes, things that I'm seeing
across multiple leaders ormultiple organizations, and
really start to unpack what theh3ll is going on? And why is
this happening? And what whatcan you do about it that will
give you some practical adviceand tips that you can take away
(00:42):
and make sense of it.
Ultimately, as a leader, youhave to pick the things that you
decide are useful or not useful.
It's only for you to make thatdecision. But what I do think
you have a responsibility to doand you're doing this right now
is to go well, what's happeningaround me, and what behaviors
might I be doing the same thingas others are doing, and what's
(01:04):
useful? What's practical, whatbuilds me to the right
direction, that I'm trying to beas a leader, because ultimately,
you will have goals, you want tobe a better leader, or you want
to be promoted, or you want toretain people or want higher
pay, whatever it is, if youdon't understand the drivers of
that economic and career enginefor yourself, there's no way
(01:26):
you're going to be able to takecontrol and move it forward. So
in saying that, and on the backof talking about control, good a
good topic for today. Andtoday's topic is around losing
your bikies as a leader. Now, ifyou're not in Australia, which
some listeners are not bikies istemper, you know, lose, losing
your mind and getting a littlebit feral, I would say it's
(01:48):
probably a good term for going abit feral or going a bit rogue.
What the h3ll does that mean?
How could that even behappening? You'd be shocked. The
number of times I hear aboutleaders losing their mind doing
certain things, and particularlyin this example, throwing things
when they get angry, throwingthings at the wall and saying,
(02:10):
you know, it's this is bull$hit.
I've had enough of it. And theteam just kind of sat there in
the corner going, what theh3ll's going on? Or, Oh, here he
goes again. So today's topic islosing your temper and your
bookies. Now, before I go intoany level of tactics and
considerations, I think it'simportant to understand what
dynamic does it create in theworkplace and in your immediate
(02:32):
team, when you behave that way?
You might think, oh, you know,Travis, it's useful if I show
people that I'm upset, or I'vehad enough of this $hit that's
going on, and I want them toknow, I'm angry, it's useful.
They know that when I'm pissed,I'm pissed. Well, that's a nice
theory. But a couple ofcomplicating factors that you
(02:53):
may or may not have consideredif you're sat in that camp. One
is that we're in one of the mosthighly mobile workforces in the
history of humanity. And that'snot an exaggeration. And by
mobile, I mean, if I don't likeyour bad temper, or your
ridiculous work ethics, orwhatever thing you're inflicting
upon me, as a leader, or aculture or hole of organization
(03:15):
approach, I will go, and notonly will I go, but by the time
the door closes, the one infront of me will be opening to
another role at an equivalentsalary if not better, in
probably a competingorganization. So I'd say that's
the first bit, you cannot expectpeople to stay and endure the
same things that they might havetolerated 10 or 15 years ago,
(03:36):
you know, I remember when Istarted back in my first
corporate role in a fortune 500company. And some of the
behaviors, particularly at thedirector level, were appalling.
I had some really great leaders,some really great senior
leaders, all the way at the VPlevel that I spent time with,
and were phenomenal mentors andleaders in their own right. But
(03:57):
there were also leaders at thedirector and senior manager
level who were atrocious. Theyhad bad habits, they had
tempers, they lost their mindand meetings, it was terrible.
So people aren't putting up withthat. That's the first bit the
mobility. Second is, do youreally want to build a culture
where people think thatemotional volatility is an
(04:18):
effective tool for achieving anoutcome? I mean, what a
destructive way to run anorganization, I don't get what I
want. So I'm going to amp it up,turn up the heat enough that
people around me getuncomfortable and I'll get what
I want. That's completelyineffective. Instead, skills
like influence and negotiationand give and take and social
(04:39):
capital all are far moreeffective. So I want you to
consider those who are talkingabout opening this conversation
with some of the fallaciesaround your timber being an
effective strategy. It's not andwe're to the point where that
stuff ends up on the internetand it's really bad for your
personal and organizationalbrand. Cool
(05:00):
So if we can agree that there'sdanger in this approach, what
does it do to your immediateteam? So I've talked about the
possibility of people moving butthe impact to your immediate
team. First is concern. I thinkit's I haven't seen this pattern
of behavior before. It'ssomething you're newly adopting
concern. I don't know why thisperson is behaving that way, I
(05:22):
don't understand why they'rebehaving that way. I don't know
why they don't have control overthe thing they're doing. And is
it okay that this is ourbehavior? Can I do the same
thing? Or am I afraid of othersdoing the same thing. So that's
the immediate team impact. Thefirst few times after that it
becomes a, this person is justone of those people who loses
(05:44):
their mind from time to time,and that has a really negative
impact. Think about have youever worked for someone like
that I have, I've had two,three, at least three, I can
remember without wasting toomuch time on at least three, I
can remember where they had apattern of this temper and
throwing tantrums or just beingoutrageous in the way in which
(06:05):
they passed on feedback. And Ididn't want to be around those
people. So I went from Oh, iseverything okay to oh, they
just, they're horrible to bearound. And for one of the
three, the thing that wasinteresting is they were never
upset with the team, they werenever terrible towards the team,
they behaved really kindly toeveryone that was reported to
(06:26):
them. But when the organizationsent big announcements around,
or they were not talked to, orbrought into the fold, or just
even really worked through ifthey could contribute to a
particular issue, basically, ifthey were left out, if they were
set to the side, left out of theengagement, or some level of
consultation, then they wouldlose it, they would throw $hit
(06:48):
at the wall, the big I can'tbelieve incorporates done this.
Again, I wasn't asked I wasn'tconsulted, I wasn't thought of
I'm just not important here.
Now, pause that step to theother side. As an employee
watching that unfold, you canalmost turn your head and look
as if you're watching that ifyou're in your car, the person
in the passenger seats doingthat. What would you be
(07:10):
thinking? If you think thisperson is either crazy week, in
that they have no influence, ornot someone I should be
following. Because if they'reweak, they're not going to get
done the stuff we need to getdone. And no one wants to work
for a weak leader. I'm notsaying weak versus strong as an
masculine and flexing muscles.
(07:31):
I'm talking about ability toaffect change effectively. And
if you're not someone who's incontrol, and can influence
stakeholders, then how is thatgoing to affect our careers as
team members? And what is thatgoing to mean for us? I think
that's really dangerous. Soyou've got those kind of
immediate impacts to the team,you've got the longer term
(07:52):
impacts to the teams, you've gotthe interesting macro trends
that are affecting that, thatwe've covered. So we've got
those three kind of ticked offin the way. So what do you do,
like you're human, you're goingto be affected. I've personally
been affected by, you know, beenin board meetings and previous
company, where I was managingdirector of that organization.
(08:14):
And I remember being outragedseveral times, but never losing
it. And there was only one timewhere I allowed that to be
shown. And I didn't do it out ofbeing out of control. I did it
as a declarative to other ownersin the business. So there were
multiple partners in thebusiness, to let them know that
this issue had gone too far. Andthat it was a really controlled,
(08:36):
I didn't blame or yell or and Ijust said that, If this
continues, you know, expletive,blah, blah, blah, we're going to
have a far more seriousconversation about the
implications of this reallyheavy handed because I had said
it, I'd emailed it. I alluded toit. And it wasn't breaking
through amongst, you know,people who are essentially peers
(08:57):
that were owners in the businessas well, although I was the
managing director, so it was thekind of first in line. And I
think that's actually I know,for a fact, that's the only time
in my 15 year leadership journeywhere I've used anger, but I
used it really effectively andin the opportune time for an
incredibly important issue thatI just could not let go and I
(09:19):
could let continue to drag on.
Now the difference between doingthat and throwing $hit at the
wall men corporate this andwhatever else is that the first
one, the one that I've justexplained to you where I did it,
and not saying that I'm alwaysright. But in this particular
example, what that does, is itshows that look, I've been kind
of been friendly. I've triedeverything I can to manage this.
(09:41):
I'm actually going to have to bepretty aggressive now because
you've given me no otheroption. If you do that in a
tiny, tiny fraction of apercentage of the time, it will
be highly effective. It's notabout being abusive. It's not
about being toxic or bullying.
None of those things, it's aboutreally, really controlled,
(10:01):
aggressive event where you pushpeople towards the issue that
you need to be resolved. Butaside from that, throwing stuff,
losing it, whatever it is noteffective. So what can you do
instead? First is to consideryour moment. So if you're going
to still adopt that as astrategy, or if like me, you do
need to use that once in a whileyou it's almost like, you get a
(10:22):
Get Out of Jail Free card,right? Think of it that way. If
this were monopolies, you haveone, maybe two shots to use
that. And then it's gone. If youdo it more than that, it either
loses its effect, or peoplestart to get really
uncomfortable with thisenvironment. So consider that
way. Second is, if you arefeeling angry about things you
don't have control of, you needto have a deeper reflective
(10:44):
exercise with yourself around.
One, what do I need to do to tryto affect change, because I'm
not getting what I want. So inthe example of the person who
was throwing things, they arenot taking control. They in the
specific examples, they clearlyand that leader had, they
clearly were not driving change,they were not making an effort,
they were grumpy around theirteam and showing that they're
(11:05):
upset that they weren't havingthose direct conversations with
the people who they thought werepushing them to the side. So you
either need to one have thoseconversations, or two you need
to consider is that the type ofplace or environment or team or
sub team, you know, there'soptions to move bosses or teams
within an organization that Iwant to be part of do I want to
(11:26):
be a leader in an organizationwhere I'm not trusted, I'm not
consulted. And I don't have theability to affect meaningful
change. Because no one gives a$hit about my opinion, I'm not
asked. I think that's important.
So first is when can I use theanger or controlled emotions
really effectively? And then thesecond is, do I feel like this
(11:46):
is an OK arrangement? Do I feellike I'm valued to the level and
consulted to the level that Ineed to be? Or is this something
ready to go? I'm sick of it.
This isn't fair, I haven'tsigned up for this, I need to
make a meaningful change toescape this pattern of behavior
on my team. And I think that's areally important thing. And if
you don't feel like you can havethat control, then it's
(12:07):
definitely something you owe toyourself, if not definitely your
team to try and affect changeon. So to summarize, today,
we've talked about the dangersof that pattern of behavior with
employees on the team and theculture crates. We've talked
about the career implicationsfor you and how that sends
signals of what kind of leaderyou are. And we've talked about
some tactics around how you cancontrol those emotions by
(12:31):
understanding the root cause andmaking decisions around those
root causes. Thank you fortuning into today's episode.
I've been your host, TravisThomas. You can check out more
on our website at teambuffalo.co And I look forward to
seeing you in tomorrow's episodewhere we address one leadership
question or topic for the day.
Keep being awesome.
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