The higher up, the angrier

Vertical anger

Lower in the organisation you hide your anger; higher up you display it. The literature confirms this and has, of course, given it an elegant name: status-based emotional display rules — implicit but clear rules that determine who is permitted to show which emotion [1].

Differences in anger higher and lower in the hierarchy

In conflicts, subordinates certainly experience anger and frustration too, but they do something very different with it. They hide and suppress their frustration almost systematically. Leaders, by contrast, express those same emotions much more openly [1]. Subordinates also genuinely consider it more desirable to suppress their "negative" emotions in front of someone of higher status [2]. It is not that people at the top are temperamentally more volatile or unstable; the implicit prohibition on expressing such emotions has been lifted, and that simply makes them more visible.

Intriguingly, the two groups can also become angry for different reasons. Leaders more often become angry about incompetence — when work has not been done well or efficiently [3]. Subordinates are more exercised by unfair treatment. You can easily imagine, then, how an angry managing partner and a frustrated junior in a conflict end up talking rather emphatically past one another.

Unequal distribution between men and women

It is important to note that the "privilege" of being able to become angry without penalty is not fairly distributed between men and women. Where anger in a male leader is still regularly accepted as passion or decisiveness, female leaders are punished socially far more severely. Their anger is more often attributed internally ("she is too emotional" or "she is losing control") rather than to the situation [4]. In practice, the angry boss is more often a man than a woman.

The effect of a leader's outburst on a subordinate is strongly shaped by how that subordinate responds. When the subordinate displays fear or sadness, the angry leader is seen as more powerful than when the recipient remains neutral or becomes angry in return [5]. You can view fear and sadness in response to anger as a form of submission, which reinforces the dominance already in place. A certain imperturbability in subordinates can therefore be destabilising for the senior who has just erupted — it diminishes the existing dominance, something which could make that senior angrier still.

And while we are on the subject of the angry boss: anger sometimes becomes chronic and turns into persistent intimidation — abusive supervision. One might assume that such an angry boss has a robust self-image — yet the opposite is true. When a subordinate turns out to be genuinely competent, that strikes certain leaders precisely where it hurts: their own self-image comes under pressure. That threatened self-image then translates into abusive behaviour [6]. Anger as a defence against a rising inner insecurity.

Horizontal anger

But why, then, does the expression of forceful emotion happen so frequently precisely between people of equal rank? Why do partners, who formally hold no power over one another, end up at each other's throats?

The communicative capacity of anger

This can be nicely explained from the Emotions as Social Information (EASI) theory. That theory holds that emotions should be seen as instruments for influencing others [7]. The more recent Theory of Affective Pragmatics goes a step further and argues that non-verbal emotional expressions possess a communicative capacity equivalent to that of spoken language! Emotions are therefore not wild upsurges from some evolutionary remnant in our limbic brain. They are utterances that convey intentions and requests [8]. The angry colleague, then, is not "overcome by emotion"; he is communicating, not through spoken language but through the instrument of emotion.

Among "equals", once differences in power have fallen away, every decision has to be "negotiated out". And what works exceptionally well in negotiations? Anger. Whoever displays anger at the negotiating table demonstrably extracts more concessions than someone who does not [9]. Showing anger turns out to be an effective strategy for forcing a decision when you are not the ultimate boss. Anger substitutes for hierarchy.

But anger also carries a price. Although in the short term you extract concessions and win the discussion, you inflict lasting damage. You lose relational satisfaction and "perceived warmth" [9], and people attribute to you lower competence and lower status [10]. They bow to your wrath, but privately consider you the poorer professional. Your image and authority suffer permanent harm.

The sorry paradox

Suppose the most senior boss has cooled down after an outburst and says "sorry". That often backfires! People with less power quickly interpret an apology from the boss as cynical or manipulative — in any case, not sincere [11]. If that same subordinate then refuses to accept the apology, that paradoxically evokes fear in the boss — which in turn compels that leader to further concessions [12]. Even without stripes on your shoulders, then, you have a powerful weapon at your disposal: the strategic withholding of forgiveness.

The hidden burden of the subordinate

Subordinates feel at least as many negative emotions as their leaders, but are not allowed to show them. Every time a subordinate laughs off frustration because that is simply what is expected, he is engaging in surface acting: putting on a face while inside he may be boiling.

Physical stress from not expressing anger

The toll this takes is considerable. Hiding anger measurably raises blood pressure [13] [14]. Feeling anger but not expressing it leads to measurably poorer performance [15]. And regular surface acting undermines one's ability to relax in the evening, impairing sleep [16].

This is important to name, because it shifts the moral centre of gravity of the story. While the partner at the top has the luxury of expressing his anger — with or without damage to his image — the subordinate carries the burden of not being permitted to express it at all.

How to handle all this anger

Vertical and horizontal anger lead to three concrete situations, each of which calls for its own approach.

A. As a leader, expressing your own anger 'wisely'

Let us begin with the person who most readily and most visibly displays anger: the leader. Precisely because it comes so easily, the responsibility to do it well is greatest.

The first instrument is selectivity. The effect of anger lies not in sustaining it, but in contrast. A leader who is normally amiable and only becomes angry at a specific moment extracts more concessions and retains a better relationship with the other party than a leader who is continually angry [17]. Whoever is angry all day loses authority; whoever deploys it selectively gains it.

The second instrument is the choice of emotion. Whoever shows disappointment instead of anger activates guilt in the other — which leads to greater pliability. Whoever is genuinely upset but consciously opts for disappointment reaps more influence [18].

The third instrument is moral anchoring. The literature describes moral anger as a distinct, morally motivated emotion, to be distinguished from everyday irritation [19]. When a leader becomes angry about unethical behaviour — fraud, boundary-violating conduct, the endangering of safety — fine things can happen. A shared climate of fairness arises, and the team's performance capacity and viability increase. Anger as an instrument of ego is harmful; anger as a guardian of integrity is powerful leadership [20].

Together, these three instruments constitute a mature way for a leader to handle his own anger: briefly shown, deliberately chosen, and morally anchored.

B. As a peer, handling an angry colleague at the top 'analytically and reflectively'

The second situation plays out between equals. There is no hierarchy to delimit the other's anger, and so the recipient's own disposition must do the work.

The trap is surface acting: laughing it off and nodding diplomatically while seething inside. That not only fails to work — it undermines your own body and sleep, as we saw above.

The alternative is cognitive reappraisal or conflict detachment. Rather than rigidly fixing your face into a mask (surface acting), you change how you intellectually view the situation. You mentally take a step back and ask yourself: "Why is he behaving this way? What lies beneath this? Which decision is he trying to force?" By regarding your colleague's anger — in line with EASI theory — analytically, as a clumsy means of communication rather than a personal attack, it affects you less. The literature shows that this very capacity to detach yourself temporarily from the conflict protects your cognitive performance, counteracts exhaustion, and yields better sleep [15] [16].

C. As a subordinate, handling an angry superior with equanimity

This is the most difficult of the three situations — and also the one for which the literature offers the least in the way of advice. For the subordinate has no equivalent bargaining position.
What we do know comes down to three things.

First: do not reactively fall back on fear or sadness. That actually reinforces the dominance of the angry boss [5] and feeds his anger rather than dampening it. A calm, imperturbable demeanour may be hard to adopt, but it is highly effective in dealing with an angry boss.

Second: use the sorry paradox. If the boss later offers his apologies, you are not obliged to accept them immediately. The strategic withholding of forgiveness evokes fear in the holder of power and compels him to far-reaching concessions [12]. It is one of the few instruments that genuinely grants power to someone who formally has none. But if you are dealing with a boss whose outbursts stem from deep insecurity or an extremely low self-image [6], strategically refusing an apology may also blow up the working relationship altogether. So use this lever deliberately, but sparingly.

Third: protect your body and sleep through cognitive reappraisal and emotional detachment. You may not be able to shout back, but you can prevent every incident from driving up your blood pressure. This provides real protection for your health in a structurally unequal position. So ask yourself: what is the real message of this anger?

Conclusion

Large emotions at the top are, in principle, not signs of dysfunctional leaders or a toxic culture. They are primarily the consequence of the absence of hierarchy, which requires other mechanisms to explain to one another what is intended, and to arrive at a shared solution.

But understanding that the mechanism is natural is not the same as saying that it is a given. A leader can absolutely learn to handle his own anger better. For himself, for the peers who have to absorb his anger, and for the subordinates who are not even allowed to answer back. Anyone who grasps how heavily an angry outburst lands on another person carries the added responsibility of deploying it consciously. And in organisations where leaders consider it normal not to temper vertical anger with the instruments described here, one may well ask whether the label "toxic" ought, after all, to be used.

Having insight into how all this works helps one to modulate and endure that storm of anger, in the absence and in the presence of hierarchy.