by Maria C Collins

Created on: June 24, 2010

Everyone gets angry from time to time. Wise parents teach children early to control their tempers. Uncontrolled anger hurts people, can be dangerous, and in the workplace can affect your career success.

If you cannot control yourself, how can you direct junior staff properly? Someone who has an uncertain temper cannot be in charge of other workers. It would be foolhardy for any company to promote such a person. A manager, who has an uncontrolled temper, could lose it at the slightest excuse, to promote them would leave junior employees at risk of emotional, mental or even physical harm and would be in breach of the employer’s duty to protect workers’ health and safety at work. At work, people irritate us all the time, a manager could find a worker in the team irritating and continually lose his or her temper with that worker, this could leave the company open to legal action for bullying.

One of the most important skills that a manager should have is the ability to get on well with others. A person, who cannot control his temper, puts a barrier between himself and others. People will be frightened to interact with him because they are scared of his anger.

Where a person, who cannot control his temper, must deal with customers or negotiate with other companies he or she is not a good ambassador for his or her company. The company could not trust such a person to represent the company properly. A person could lose the company customers or lucrative contracts and thus affect the company’s profitability and even its very existence.

Many industries are close knit and word travels fast. Someone who cannot control his or her temper may find it difficult to get another job in the same industry because their reputation will precede them. He or she may also have indications on references that he or she is less than the ideal employee.

An impatient angry person does not have the patience to learn new skills or unfamiliar duties. He is inflexible and inadaptable and therefore not an asset to the company.

A person with a bad temper, may have a bad disciplinary record because he or she loses their temper easily and this leads to offences against the company’s behavioural policies. This could lead to dismissal.

Patience is a virtue and one to be cultivated if you want to succeed in life and your career. To be able to control other workers at work you must first learn to control yourself. An uncontrolled temper can be a dangerous and frightening thing but it can prevent you from gaining promotion, keeping your job, getting another job. Someone with an uncontrolled temper could lose the company customers or contracts. Learn to control your temper before it affects your career success.

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