Tips For Admins

As an administrative professional, sometimes you are required to work with and around angry people. These are the times you can really shine by remembering a few basic rules.

First of all, remember anger is always a need not being met. Every time you are dealing with an angry person, see if you can notice what that need is. And every time you get angry look to see what your real needs are.

If you have a boss who comes out of a meeting and jumps all over you for not having a file he needed for the meeting, you can look to see if any of the following apply:

1. He’s upset over something that happened in the meeting; for example, perhaps he needed to feel respect from his peers and didn’t.
2. He’s upset over something that happened as a result of the meeting. Perhaps he wanted to show off something he was proud of. You didn’t get the file to him and so he’s feeling disappointed and insecure because he needed to feel appreciated for the hard work he did.
3. He’s angry (and needy) about something that happened long before he came in to work this morning.

Wherever it came from, the need that isn’t being met is causing anger at some level. If you can find the need, you can deal effectively with the anger.

How can you do that?

By paraphrasing and empathizing. When we repeat back what they say they always listen (it’s their words, after all). And when we can also empathize—understand how they are really feeling—then we are communicating on a level of far greater understanding.

Then, get them involved in the answer. It doesn’t matter why someone is angry, they think they are right; they think they understand what will fix it. And getting them involved, they automatically start to feel better.

At one of my seminars in Las Vegas a woman told me her boss was always right, regardless of how wrong he was. And he loved telling her she had made the mistake, she was always wrong. For many people this would be maddeningly frustrating.

On the other hand, she had an interesting response at these moments. She would smile at him and reply “That’s why I’m here, to correct whatever mistakes I’ve made and make sure things get done right.” She didn’t mind always taking the blame. She said if it had to do with integrity she would have said something, but as it was, she picked her battles and won by not having to prove she was right.

She also said that the boss calmed down immediately when she replied this way and she was able to get more done with lots less drama.