Permission to Get Mad. (Yes, Really.)

There’s one stage of grief I didn’t want anything to do with: Anger.

Not because I never felt it— but because I didn’t know what to do with it. So I did what a lot of high-performing, “hold it together” female leaders do…I ignored it.

Minimized it.

Moved past it.

Reframed it into something more acceptable.

And for a long time, that looked like strength.

It looked like composure.

It looked like leadership.

But it wasn’t.

The Truth About Anger

Every emotion has a purpose.

It’s communicating something specific. It’s not random. It’s not inconvenient. It’s not “too

much.”

It’s data.

Anger, in particular, is a signal:

• A boundary was crossed

• Something mattered more than we admitted

• There’s a misalignment we haven’t named

• We are afraid

But if you don’t have a relationship with anger, you don’t hear the message.

You just feel the noise…and shut it down.

My Relationship With Anger (or Lack of One)

Looking back, I didn’t have a relationship with anger—I had a strategy to avoid it. And let me be clear—I’m not a people pleaser. I’m direct. I’m driven. I’ll say the hard thing. But I was also raised on Midwestern kindness and a belief that polite was right.

So I learned how to:

• Stay composed

• Keep things moving

• Not make people uncomfortable

• Keep the peace

And that strategy worked…

Until it didn’t.

I could feel angry.

But I wasn’t processing anger.

There’s a difference.

Because unprocessed emotion doesn’t go away.

It stores.

It builds.

It waits.

And eventually—it comes back with a vengeance.

Emotionally.

And physically.

When the Body Starts Talking

It wasn’t until I read The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk that things started to click. The body doesn’t forget what the mind tries to move past. What we don’t process… we carry.

In tension.

In fatigue.

In chronic stress.

In ways we can’t always explain.

For me, it answered a hard question: How did I break my own body?

Not all at once.

But over time—by not listening to what my emotions were trying to tell me.

Ignoring anger didn’t make me stronger.

It made me disconnected—from myself.

Why Leaders Struggle With Anger

Let’s be honest—anger has a branding problem. Especially in leadership. And even more so for women.

We’re taught:

• Stay composed

• Be professional

• Don’t overreact

• Keep it together

So anger becomes something to manage… not something to understand.

We redirect it into productivity.

We channel it into perfectionism.

We bury it under performance.

But suppressed anger doesn’t disappear—it leaks out:

• Passive-aggressive communication

• Short fuses in the wrong moments

• Avoidance of hard conversations

• Overcontrol or shutdown

And underneath all of it is the same issue: The emotion was never processed.

Anger Isn’t the Problem

Unprocessed anger is.

Anger itself is information. It’s data.

It’s pointing to something that needs attention:

• A boundary that needs to be set

• A truth that needs to be spoken

• A loss that hasn’t been acknowledged

• A value that’s been violated

But if you skip it—you don’t move forward.

You get stuck.

And stuck doesn’t feel like stillness.

It feels like tension.

What I Didn’t Know Then

What I’m learning now is this:

I never asked anger why it was there.

I didn’t get curious.

I didn’t slow down long enough to listen.

I just tried to move past it.

But you don’t heal by outrunning emotion.

You heal by understanding it.

Building a New Relationship With Anger

This isn’t about becoming reactive.

It’s not about exploding or “letting it all out.”

It’s about awareness.

It’s about relationship.

Now, when anger shows up, the work is simple—but not easy:

• Pause

• Notice it

• Ask: What is this trying to tell me?

• Identify the boundary, the loss, or the misalignment

• Choose how to respond instead of reacting

That’s a completely different way of leading.

Not just others—but yourself.

A Leadership Reflection

If you’re a leader, here’s something to consider: Where might unprocessed anger be showing up—in you or your team?

Not as yelling or visible conflict…but as:

• Silence

• Withdrawal

• Control

• Frustration that doesn’t have a clear source

Because just like grief…

Anger doesn’t go away when ignored.

It just finds another way to be heard.

Final Thought

Every emotion has a purpose.

Even the ones we’ve been taught to avoid.

Especially the ones we’ve been taught to avoid.

Anger isn’t something to suppress.

It’s something to understand.

Because when you finally listen to it…

You don’t just feel better.

You lead better.