Few people are as knee-deep in our work-related anxieties and sticky office politics as Alison Green, who has been fielding workplace questions for a decade now on her website Ask a Manager. In Direct Reportshe spotlights themes from her inbox that help explain the modern workplace and how we could be navigating it better.
Work is usually a place where you expect the people around you to control their emotions. That doesn’t mean our colleagues turn off their feelings when they clock in, obviously—but professionalism involves maintaining a pretty even keel, at least outwardly, particularly when it comes to negative behaviors. We’re supposed to understand that, no matter how strong the temptation, we can’t give someone the silent treatment, cry in every meeting, or yell at our colleagues.
And yet, for some reason, in some offices, people get away with this.
Often that yeller is the boss. It’s unclear exactly why they do this, but one recent study found that it’s not because bosses are stressed or burned out—it’s because they genuinely think it’ll make their employees work faster and harder, and show them who’s “in charge.” One of the researchers summed up the sort of self-reports bosses gave about their behavior like so: “If my followers have poor performance and I yell at them to increase compliance, then I feel like I achieved something in the short term.”
This is frankly abusive, and not something any workplace should tolerate. It’s an abuse of a manager’s power over others, and it’s simply not how a human should deal with other humans.
It also happens to be terrible management, since not only does it diminish the authority of the yeller by making them look out of control, it also creates an environment of fear and stifles people’s creativity and initiative (who wants to take risks when there’s a yeller nearby?). It will also, understandably, make good employees look for other jobs.
And yet, the power dynamics of the workplace can make people feel that they have no choice but to tolerate being yelled at. This person describes it well:
Recently I made a medium-sized, careless error at work. When my boss’s boss confronted me about it, I owned up to my mistake and apologized, but she proceeded to pull me into her office and—no exaggeration—literally scream at me about it for upwards of 15 minutes. My repeated apologies were shouted down, and the topic of her tirade quickly switched from this one error to a litany of attacks on my personal character and complaints about the work environment at large, many of which had nothing to do with me. She was so intense that I actually began to feel physically unsafe.
We somehow managed to wrap up the “conversation” in a slightly more calm fashion, and she even apologized at the end for being so intense, but it left me wondering: Would it have been OK for me to ask her to calm down, or to ask to reschedule the conversation until she was more levelheaded? In out-of-work life, I’d have no problem asking a friend or loved one to postpone a necessary discussion if I sensed one or both of us was in danger of fully losing our temper, or if the argument gets too heated to proceed respectfully or civilly. In fact, I’ve always found that to be a very effective technique—but obviously the dynamic with a boss is much different.
Here’s another person who feels helpless to push back when their boss yells at them, even after trying to escalate the issue to HR:
I’ve been in my job for a year and a half, and my boss’s aggressive attitude is taking a toll on me. Often she shouts at me (and I do mean shouts) in earshot of other people … I struggle to stand up for myself with her. On the few occasions I have, she has either shouted back to me and asked me if I am “not up to the stress” of my job or been extra aggressive back and ignored me for several days. … I have gone to HR and spoken to her manager, but they have told me to file a formal grievance, which I am just not able to do. We are a team of two, and practically speaking, if I file a grievance, I will have to leave.
And while yelling is unpleasant for anyone to be subjected to, workplaces may have employees whose personal histories make it particularly difficult to deal with:
My boss can get worked up when things are not going according to plan and will often end up yelling for minutes on end. This usually happens in group settings, and he’s not yelling at anyone in particular, just about his frustration in general (although sometimes he’ll yell about a person who’s not present). I don’t enjoy this, but it’s also not the worst thing in the world for me to listen to. … Recently, though, one of my co-workers, who is a close friend of mine and a survivor of domestic abuse, confided in me that because of her personal history, his yelling scares her. She’s not actually scared that the yelling about frustrations will turn into yelling at her, or that he’ll escalate his behavior in any way, but hearing someone yell about even an abstract problem is triggering for her. I think if he knew this he’d make a much stronger effort to find healthier ways to process his emotions, but it’s obviously not the kind of thing to lightly encourage her to share with him.
Of course, not all yellers are in positions of authority. But even when the yeller isn’t the boss, the complicated dynamics of the workplace can make their colleagues hesitant to push back:
I work in a very small office with an open floor plan. Most of us are friendly enough and get along well, with the exception of Jane. Jane is one of the unhappiest, most negative people I have ever met. She complains almost constantly about anything and everything—and the complaining itself is very loud, often to the point of yelling. … My co-workers and I are getting sick of it, but no one wants to go to HR and no one wants to confront Jane about her behavior out of fear of how she might react. Jane has said she hates being told to “calm down” and more than one co-worker has expressed concerns about her “going postal.” I myself dread working with Jane and often lose sleep on nights before we are in the office together.
It’s absurd that so many workplaces haven’t decided that yelling is unacceptable, just as it would be unacceptable for an employee to come to work drunk or have regular meltdowns in the breakroom. In particular, companies should flag managers who yell as people who need better training and coaching (so they can learn how to get the work they need from their teams without all the emotional chaos). In many cases, those managers also need closer scrutiny to suss out whether they’re up to the challenges of the job or not.
And employees who are stuck working for managers who yell need to know it’s OK to lay down boundaries—to say, “I’m not willing to be yelled at, but I’d be glad to talk with you about this later once you’re no longer yelling.” In fact, sometimes calmly and matter-of-factly asserting that boundary will defuse the yeller by making them realize they look out of control and even foolish. (Moreover, yellers are often so used to never being called out on their behavior that when someone does push back, it can jar them back into behaving more appropriately.) And because part of the stress of being yelled at can come from feeling trapped, realizing that you have the option of saying “No, I won’t be treated like this,” and leaving can help you regain a sense of agency. You can also go to HR, of course, if your company has decent HR that will actually intervene (or could consider going over the yeller’s head if there’s management above them that’s likely to act).
If that doesn’t work, yelling is abusive enough that it’s worth actively working on getting out. No one should have to be screamed at to collect a paycheck.
