Commiseration: A Chinese Way to do Anger Management in a Context of Leadership at Work

Abstract

This research is to understand how Chinese managers manage their anger when they exercise leadership over a subordinate and feel anger towards this person. On the empirical side, this research innovates since the results and the analysis are based on interviews conducted with Chinese managers in top senior positions. With such high-quality of the sample, this research covers a gap identified with most previous researches on the topic of leadership in China, whiches were done with lesser or inexperienced people. On the theoretical side, our interpretation of the results leads us to propose a new mechanism called commiseration as a way Chinese managers manage their anger at work. Also, on the practical side, we believe that a better understanding of these mental processes will help managers here and there to have a different perspective on this emotion, and thus improve their leadership in conflictual situations.