Many of us remember one of the most common lies we were told as a child. If you have children of your own, you may have even told this lie yourself: “If you tell me, I promise I won’t get angry.” Although we have grown and matured since then, the threat of disappointing and angering someone in a position of authority never truly leaves us. It is for this reason anger—and strong emotional responses in general—can be an extremely potent leadership tool, one that I argue is generally misused within the Sea Services. The most effective leaders recognize the effect of their emotions on themselves and their crew and can wield this to maximize team benefits. The worst leaders fail at effectively controlling their emotions, lose their self-control, and allow their feelings to dictate their responses. I believe anger, when used sparingly, appropriately, and—most important—consistently, can help drive a team towards greatness.
When asked what characteristics a leader should have, many words come to mind: honesty, integrity, level of knowledge, and so on. I believe the most critical attribute in a leader is consistency. Honesty, integrity, and knowledge are only prerequisites; on a daily basis on the deckplates, consistency is critically important. This includes emotional consistency. Having a stable mood in response to bad news is critical for building supervisor-subordinate trust. Subordinates should understand that if, for example, they make a procedural error while on watch, their supervisor may become frustrated or angry, but will not become so enraged that coffee mugs start flying. The level of anger should be such that it provides an incentive to prevent bad behavior, but not so much that it leads to cover-ups. Demonstrating consistent, acceptable reactions as a leader promotes communication up and down the chain of command.
It is difficult to imagine emotion as cold and calculating, but this can be when it is most effective as a leadership tool. On a Friday afternoon in Guam, my watch team was just beginning our evaluated trainer as part of our predeployment work-ups. Standing in a simulated Los Angles–class submarine’s attack center, we would work as a team to practice driving the ship, managing sonar and periscope contacts, and would conduct a mission similar to what we expected on our upcoming deployment. Afternoons in Guam can reach 90 degrees with 100 percent humidity, and most of my watch team had just gotten off duty. Energy levels were low, focus was lacking, and most just wanted to finish the training and start our weekend.
Unsurprisingly, a short time after the simulated scenario commenced, my watch team began struggling. Also unsurprisingly, our executive officer (XO) became angry, and forcefully expressed this anger. Of course, leaders and service members get angry every day, but this day stuck out to me because of how our XO went about “losing” his temper. He got loud, but not out of control. He was forceful and demanded the team wake up and focus on our processes, but he was not insulting or degrading. And most shocking of all, when I asked about it afterwards, he said that he was not even actually angry, but the watch team needed him to be. The XO provided an emotional reaction to emphasize his demands for high performance and to “scare” the team, but as a human he understood the reasons behind the poor performance and was not emotionally invested. This allowed him to provide effective feedback to the team in the form of an emotional response over which he had complete control. Obviously, the watch team needed to wake up, feel some stress, and refocus on the task at hand.
In addition to providing an appropriate and productive emotional response to force the team to improve, my XO’s “anger” provided a second benefit to my team. The XO getting angry at us effectively shielded us from the non-crew personnel evaluating us. By getting angry, our XO demonstrated the standards we held as a ship, the results if we did not meet our internal standards, and that our senior leaders cared enough about our performance to intervene. The XO’s job in this case was to properly enforce our training standards; his job was to get angry when we operated poorly. He demonstrated that he could do his job, allowing the crew to do its job, allowing the ship as a whole to do its job—operate the ship to our standards—without the need for the trainer staff or the squadron higher-ups to get involved.
The Science on Stress
More than forcing a sleepy watch-team to wake up, the stress generated from a leader’s anger has well-documented physiological effects. A University of Colorado study in 2003 in conjunction with NASA found that light, acute stress introduced to raise arousal improves performance across a variety of metrics. In fact, errors and cognitive failures by aircrews often are associated as much with underarousal as with overarousal. The correlation of stress with performance follows an inverted “U” relationship. At low stress, performance is similarly low. As stress rises, arousal and mental mobilization rise, resulting in improved performance. Eventually, stress reaches some optimal level, with a corresponding high level of performance. Further stress causes overarousal and a degradation in performance. Eventually, excess stress can cause a catastrophic drop in performance, as choking and panic set in.
The Navy’s stress continuum model, which depicts rising stress levels moving from a green or “ready” state, to yellow “reacting,” orange “injured,” and red “ill,” is a bit of an oversimplification. It is possible to go further left of green, to a region of stagnation, complacency, and lack of drive. This is where my watch team began our trainer. The above example was particularly effective because the XO was not truly emotionally distraught, allowing him to fully control his response. He was able to increase our stress to a more optimal level with the impression of anger, without going overboard to reach degraded performance.
While anger can be wielded like a surgical scalpel, it is more commonly and unfortunately used as a savage club. Feeling strong emotional responses is a normal part of the human condition, but it becomes a liability for both leaders and subordinates when not controlled. It is somewhat common for members of the Sea Services to encounter a leader one might call a “screamer.” These leaders fail to control their emotional states—anger in particular—and resort to yelling or screaming to correct the perceived problem. A leader may get angry, but he or she should never lose their temper in front of their subordinates. The foundation of the leader-subordinate relationship is trust, and although no explicit promise has been made, a leader losing his or her temper represents a breaking of this trust. We are a professional service, and temper-tantrums are the anthesis of professional.
It is our job as leaders to provide a bedrock of stability and control in a stressful environment. To lose one’s temper is to give up control of the situation. Instead of the leader being the one in control, they allow the situation to control their emotions and thoughts. Current and future watch-team leaders must establish conditions for the team to act as a cohesive whole. Information should flow from the specific watch stations up through the chain of command, to eventually reach the tactical decision-maker. Fear of disproportionate anger or repercussions act as a barrier to this information flow. Tensions may already be elevated by the importance or difficulty of the situation, and any additional stress hinders the performance of the watch team.
Excessive acute stress beyond an optimal arousal level has been shown to have a detrimental effect on decision making. Not only does excessive acute stress reduce performance at memory recognition tasks, but it also exacerbates behavioral biases in decision-making. This has a two-fold effect on the overly emotional leader. First, the leader’s ability to make the best decision with the current information becomes degraded. He or she might feel overwhelmed or panicked, and are statistically shown to be worse at making decisions. Second, this stress is passed on from the leader to his or her watch team, egregiously so if the leader loses his or her temper. Excessive stress within the watch team usually manifests as a breakdown in communication and overall performance. The leader gets worse at making decisions, and the information and backup provided by the watch team—information that helps make those decisions—degrades as well. This makes the situation appear more difficult, raising the stress of the leader and the rest of the watch team. If not controlled, this positive feedback loop can result in total breakdown in team functionality, with close-aboard contacts or collisions resulting.
There are arguments for why screaming or losing one’s temper is acceptable or a valuable leadership skill. Some may argue that it sends a message to the crew, and indeed it does. Perhaps the intended message is supposed to emphasize how unacceptable a behavior is, or the magnitude of a mistake. Unfortunately, the message many take away from these encounters is to avoid similar situations at all costs. A leader losing his or her temper because of failed maintenance, poor performance on an evaluated evolution, or a bad tag-out may have the major unintended consequence of providing motivation for cover-ups, gundecking, or lack of reporting. Personnel do not want to fail or make mistakes that could hurt their reputation or that of their ship. In many cases, the fault lies with the process, not the performer. I personally have not tried screaming over a poorly written maintenance procedure or an overlooked signature block, but I suspect it would do little good. If, however, a stressful or painful experience can be framed as a chance to learn and grow, then “the stressful experience can have beneficial psychological effects instead of harmful ones.” In essence, if the stress from a failure can be reduced or modified, future performance improves.
Leaders are the ones setting the example. If a behavior is acceptable for a supervisor, it is implicit permission for the subordinates to conduct themselves in the same manner. In this instance, command culture flows downhill. The XO losing his temper at a department head makes it acceptable for the chief to scream at the lead petty officer, and for the lead petty officer to scream at his sailor. Officers need to understand that the crew is always watching and consciously or unconsciously mirror their leaders’ behavior. Therefore, losing control of one’s emotions hurts not only the service members directly present, but the entire ship.
Leaders must recognize the effect their emotions have on those around them. The correct amount of anger can motivate a team to success, even if that anger is not truly felt by the leader. Excessive anger, however, leads to more stress, worsening performance, and can quickly influence the culture of the ship. Losing one’s temper out of genuine fury is tantamount to giving up all control over a situation when a leader’s job is to do the opposite. It is a breech of trust with the crew, and unacceptable in a professional service. Leaders should provide consistency and control, and act in support of an environment that promotes their team’s success, even if that means getting angry.
