Get Angry And Then Get Results
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Word count: 510
Summary: Many leadership situations are emotionally-charged,
with leaders often being the targets of people's anger. As a
leader, you must deal with that anger in ways that helps your
organization flourish. But in such situations, you often get
angry too. The most effective way to deal with your own anger is
to use it to achieve great results.
Get Angry And Then Get Results By Brent Filson
Leadership is not about winning a popularity contest, it's about
getting great results. To do so, leaders must challenge people
not to do what they want to do but what they don't want to do.
This means getting people out of being comfortable achieving
average results to being uncomfortable doing what's needed to
get great results. Of course, people so challenged will often
get angry with you.
Provoking people's anger comes with the territory of being a
challenging leader. In fact, if you are not getting a portion of
the people you lead angry with you, you may not be challenging
them enough.
This does not mean you let their anger fester. You absolutely
must deal with it. After all, you can't motivate angry,
resentful people to be your cause leaders.
But there is another angry person you have to deal with. If you
don't deal with that person, you won't be able to get the
results you're capable of. That person is you.
For just as people get angry in a challenging leadership
situation, so do you. It's only natural. You may get angry at
their not understanding the challenge, or their not taking the
action you want, or their not listening to you, or their not
being totally committed to doing what you think is important, or
their disobeying you, or their trying to undermine your leader,
or any number of things.
Just as you must recognize that in the give-and-take of
leadership encounters, you'll occasionally get angry, you should
also recognize that such anger is your great opportunity. An
opportunity for you to achieve great results.
To understand this, I want you to remember David Coffin and
Aristotle.
When writing my book, Executive Speeches: 51 CEOs Tell You How
To Do Yours, I interviewed C.E.O. David Coffin who said, "I'm
patient, reasonable, even tempered. But once my patience runs
out, I give my best talks. .... Something has to be done. You
want to get it done!"
I counsel leaders that great results happen in the realm of the
free choice of the people you lead and that to give people
choices, leaders should be "patient, reasonable, even tempered."
They should also be great listeners and adapt at asking good
questions ... most of the time.
Occasionally, however, leaders must let their patience run out.
They must get angry and show people they're angry ... because
something has to be done and they want it done!
However, just getting angry and communicating that anger is not
enough to seize the opportunity that anger can provide. That's
where Aristotle comes in. Aristotle wrote in Nicomachean Ethics:
"Anyone can be angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the
right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the
right purpose, in the right way -- that is not easy."
If you get angry, think of David Coffin and Aristotle. Be angry
with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time,
for the right purpose, in the right way -- and you'll find
you're getting increases in results.
2005