Tread Carefully When Using Aggression to Achieve Your Goal

AGGRESSION carries a negative connotation. It’s often described as an attribute of anger and a lead-in to violent behavior. But aggression can also be equated with the tenacity with which someone goes after their goals. In this sense, it describes somebody who pursues their goal with great passion, enthusiasm, or intensity.

An example may be a young executive, in the process of trying to impress her bosses, who utilizes unconventional tactics to increase her clientele. Her increased status leads clients of one of her coworkers to transfer to her accounts. While her goal had been to increase her sales, she had no intention of hurting her colleague. But nonetheless her coworker clearly was, even though hurting someone wasn’t the goal.

Such tactics are often the case with people who become successful. Aggression has been shown repeatedly as paving the way for success.

Aggression is the tenacity with which someone goes after their goals. Aggressiveness, which is the adverb describing behavior, captures this best. While there have been misunderstandings when we describe someone as aggressive, people mistakenly think that it means that they’re violent. In fact, there are two main types of aggression: instrumental aggression and reactive aggression.

Instrumental aggression is when somebody is pursuing their goal with great passion, enthusiasm or intensity, in order to increase the likelihood of achieving that goal. A secondary consequence of that behavior may be to harm someone, but it is not the goal.

For example, a basketball player is heading to the hoop in order to score. In the process of driving the lane, they accidentally elbow an opponent in the face. There is no denying that the other player got hurt, but that was not the goal. The goal was to put the ball in the hoop.

Just as the young executive whose tactics ended up stealing her coworker’s clients, people who rely on instrumental aggression can hurt others even though it wasn’t their intention.

Compare this to the second form of aggression — reactive aggression. It describes behavior that has as its primary and sometimes solitary goal to do harm to someone. Reactive aggression is related to anger and often is the behavior that leads people to get into trouble. It usually appears in response to a perceived injustice, insult, or wrongdoing.

A sports example of reactive aggression would be an offensive lineman trash talking a defensive lineman about his mother, saying obscene things. Furious, the defensive lineman gets up and smacks the offensive lineman in the helmet, incurring a 15-yard penalty and being ejected from the game. Note, this was in reaction to a provocation — that’s why it’s called reactive aggression.

So, instrumental aggression paves the way for success, while reactive aggression paves the way for trouble. Why? People, especially men, are very sensitive to issues of power. If you can provoke somebody to fight, you control them.

If you’re someone who wears your emotional buttons on your sleeve, you can be easily provoked and will often engage in reactive aggression. You’re also someone who gives your power away all the time.

Think about it like this: real power is like being Teflon: nothing sticks to you and nothing breaks you. Let nearly everything roll off. Allow the things that stick to be worth it — which means: don’t waste energy or emotion being easily provoked. It’s just not worth it and can be really costly emotionally or materially.

In short, aggression can work for you or against you. If you tenaciously go after your goals, as in engaging in instrumental aggression, you are likely to achieve success. The only caveat is you need to be aware of the price you may pay for quashing others along the way. On the other hand, if you have a hard time keeping your reactive aggression in check, you’re unlikely to get ahead. You’ll need to get better at seeing what and who matters, and what and who you have the delicious privilege of completely ignoring.

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Mitch Abrams has a private practice providing sport, clinical, and forensic psychology services, and is also an expert in the treatment of trauma. Since 2000, he has worked inside the prison system in New Jersey and now provides psychological services for seven of the state’s prisons. He is also an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Rutgers University. Abrams is the Founder and CEO of Learned Excellence for Athletes, utilizing anger management training to assist high achievers to reach peak performance. His new book is I’m Not F*ing Angry!!! Adjust the Flames to Get What You Want and Need. Learn more at drmitchabrams.com.

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