Righteous Anger

The great movie, Network, gave rise to a memorable speech on the silver screen. At the end of his newscast, Howard Beale, fed up with the hypocrisy and greed of his time, uttered these words (which could be the rallying cry of those expressing anger at today's world): "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" This is not just any anger-this is righteous anger. Righteous anger is not just a swirling cauldron of emotions; righteous anger is grounded in a moral judgment that something wrong has occurred and it must be corrected and changed.

Righteous anger has a moral force to it that leads people to action. But this action may not be immediate. There is usually shock, then chaos, and then paralysis of action. But when the wrongdoers appear to be absolved of their actions, a catalytic reaction occurs that boils over into righteous anger. Once people are righteously angry, they are motivated to take matters into their own

What should leaders do? First, they need to really understand the righteous anger it has caused and what exactly causes it. They need to pay attention to the mistakes that were made that triggered this righteous anger. This understanding will help leaders navigate the turbulent waters of bad news.  Leaders need to focus on how their actions-or inaction- might further stoke righteous anger. That is, what can leaders do to defuse the current anger and lessen its likelihood in the future? The answer is to treat people fairly and, when that fails, rebuild the trust.

Fairness and trust may sound like common sense, but remember the brilliant words of Voltaire:

"Common sense is not so Common."

This lack of "common sense" is what we find most common in the leadership courses we teach to MBA students every semester. Many of them believe that all a leader needs is a technically brilliant vision and the resources to implement it. Anything beyond that, such as being able to navigate corporate politics, or "being nice" to employees, is at best irrelevant, and at worst an illegitimate concern. So, in class, and here, we emphasize the basics. Everything else is just fine-tuning.

Getting Back to Basics

Treat Employees Fairly

So, what can and should leaders do to treat people fairly? Here is Basic Rule #1: Don't trigger their righteous anger! Righteous anger is triggered when one is harmed or sees wrongdoing. In our research on workplace anger and revenge, two of the wrongs we find that trigger enough anger to motivate revenge are: breaking of rules/social norms, and abuse of power. People are always sensitive to the breaking of rules or violation of social norm-not unlike what happened growing up when someone broke the rules of Capture the Flag or Monopoly. Examples of rule violations include promoting someone who doesn't meet the promotion criteria, or changing the rules for determining salaries or budgets to favor some individuals or departments over others who are more deserving. For example, are those in the board room judged by different (meaning lower) standards of accountability relative to those in the mail room or on the loading dock? Common examples of violating social norms are shirking your job responsibilities as leaders, blaming employees for your mistakes, and lying to your employees.

Examples of abuse of power are the "petty tyrant" boss and the corrupt boss. The petty tyrant boss is one who is overly harsh, and even cruel, in dealings with subordinates. Corrupt bosses are ones who "pig out" on bonuses while others suffer. These are the ones who used the bailout money for bonuses or massages. Those leaders say they were owed the bonuses by contract.

But, what about their breach of the social contract they entered into when becoming a member of senior leadership? Stewardship, and duty to the organization and its employees-keeping the organization alive-were key clauses in that social contract. This being the primary virtue of leaders, it smacks of rank hypocrisy when leaders invoke their contract (above the social contract) to justify their bonuses when their organization received bailout money to keep it afloat.

The Blame Game

To make employees righteously angry, it takes more than experiencing harm or witnessing a wrong-employees must blame a leader for the harm or wrong. The assignment of blame is critical. To assign blame, the employees assess the leader's motives. Did the leader intend to cause harm? If the employees judge that the leader's action or inaction was outside of their control, little blame will be assigned. If the leader's actions were not causal, but were merely negligent because they should have done something to stop the harm or wrongdoing, then employees will assign more blame to the leader. If employees judge that the leader caused the harm on purpose, or that the wrongdoing was intentional, then all of the blame will be placed on the leader.

But, the "rules" of the blame game are going to be hard for leaders to assess, because when people are harmed or see wrongdoing, they tend to follow certain cognitive rules-or "biases"-that will lead to harsher moral judgments about leaders. Our research suggests that, in this era of bad news, employees are more likely see the leader's actions-or inaction-as intentional, maybe even part of a conspiracy by all senior leadership in the organization. Moreover, they will ruminate and obsess about what the leader could have or should have done, only making blaming the leader more certain and harsher-which, in turn, makes them even more angry.

Acting on Anger

You may ask, "So what if my employees are angry? They should act like professionals and deal with it." We find that most employees will deal with it, but often not in a way most people would call "professional" or that the organization would prefer. That is, sometimes employees get even for the harms that befall them and for the wrongs they witness. When employees experience injustice, they seek to do justice. They seek revenge.

When individuals do try to get even, revenge can often be a very creative act. Small, everyday acts of revenge include refusing to help others, working slower, or the very common "silent treatment." More extreme forms of revenge include badmouthing others, giving bad service to customers, stealing or destroying company resources, trashing the organization in an online blog, quitting, and suing the organization. Such actions tend to damage productive workplace collaborations, and ultimately hurt the bottom line. And, oh yes, as an added "bonus," these acts of revenge will likely distract you and your employees from the important concerns of "righting the ship" in these turbulent waters.

Righteous anger can motivate action in a different manner as well. It propels people to right wrongs and deter future injustices. The moral justification provided by the emotions of righteous anger can also be transformed into the rhetoric of injustice used by activists and leaders to rally or mobilize people to action-whether it be political protest or public pressure to punish the wrongdoers- and change the rules of the game to ensure this bad behavior won't happen again. In other words, righteous anger may not only empower individuals to action, but it may also be used in the rhetoric of those who seek empowerment through political means. Indeed, all revolutions are sustained by righteous anger as control is wrested away from the leaders.

No Justice, No Peace

"True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice." - Martin Luther King, Jr. You say you don't want a revolution? You know, then, that you have to ensure justice. What's difficult, however, is that in this time of bad news and change, employees are overly sensitive to fairness concerns. Of course, leaders know that they won't always be perceived as fair-especially when they have to deny requests. Leaders may have to tell one employee expecting a promotion that the promotion went to another employee, or tell a business unit that their budget proposal was turned down. Turning down employees and having them get upset about it is, of course, unavoidable and goes with the territory of being a leader. And in this era of bad news, there will thousands more laid-off employees, and they are likely to view their fates as unfair.

Fortunately, much research shows that as long as employees perceive that the process is fair, they don't complain so much about not getting the outcomes they wanted. And such processes are perceived as more fair if they have certain features. For instance, were the rules applied consistently for different people, or were some people "above the law?" Was accurate information used, or was the decision based on poorly researched "facts" and gossip? Did the decision makers have any conflicts of interest, perhaps by somehow benefiting from one particular outcome over another?

Did those who received the outcomes have any say or input into the decision, or was the decision merely imposed on them without even consulting them? Can the decision be appealed? Such fair processes not only avoid triggering anger, they also channel anger that has arisen anyway (perhaps due to some other employee triggering it) into controllable grievance systems instead of to wouldbe "vigilantes" who will take matters into their own hands. In short, if leaders do not provide this fair process, employees will be more likely to seek justice themselves.

(Re)Building Trust

Even after leaders have re-established justice, even "cooled out" angry employees, their problems are still not over. Employees may not trust leaders just yet. They may be wondering when the next harm will occur. After all, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Research on layoff survivors is clear about this point: after watching how their colleagues were let go by organizational leaders, they assume that when their turn comes to be let go, they will be treated the same way.

Similarly, should employees observe their boss unfairly short an employee's wages, even after that employee has negotiated back fair wages, other employees will wonder if their boss will try to short them, too. So, even after quelling righteous anger, though leaders may want to focus afresh on the future, they must still deal with the past anyway. In particular, they must explain the past behavior in such a way that employees don't use negative past behavior to predict a negative future. Because, if employees predict a negative future, they will guard against it-in part, by not trusting the leaders. So, how should a leader begin (re)building trust? We suggest you build The Five Pillars of Trust.

Continued in the next issue of Businessgyan... 

Robert J. Bies and Thomas M. Tripp are co-authors of Getting Even: The Truth About Workplace Revenge-And How to Stop It.

Robert J. Bies is a professor of management and founder of the Executive Master's in Leadership Program at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. Bies's current research focuses on leadership and the delivery of bad news, organizational justice, and revenge and forgiveness in the workplace.

 Thomas M. Tripp is a professor of management and operations at Washington State University. Professor Tripp has published dozens of research articles in scientific journals on the subject of workplace conflict and organizational justice.This article has been chosen from www.changethis.com

Issue BG99 June06