I think of resiliency from a personal perspective. It is something I embrace when trying to manage the ever changing flow of life . It helps bring control and decreases negative impacts on my mental wellbeing.
Resiliency promotes a confidence within myself and helps me learn from failures. Amongst many other things, it affords me the time to respond to problems and criticism. But have you ever considered the importance of having a resilient leader?
It is said that the true grit of a person is not how they perform during the good times, but rather how they display emotional strength, courage and professionalism during the most trying times- This can be said for successful leaders.
It is impossible to demonstrate resilience unless you have gone through difficult times. Leaders who have led a team during a time of leadership transition, period of high staff turnover, through an organizational restructuring or through a season where surveys revealed poor performance are more likely to have developed a resilient leadership posture.
Resilient leaders have the ability to sustain their energy level under pressure and to cope with disruptive changes and adapt. This allows them to bounce back from setbacks far quicker. Resilience is a crucial characteristic of high performing leaders, and leaders must cultivate it in themselves in order to advance and thrive.
A leader's actions during a crisis serve as a model for their followers. As a leader, your people are watching you all the time so the manner in which you compose yourself is crucial as it serves as a model for those around you. If you act like a weak leader, your people will learn this style of leadership. This will not only jeopardize the success of your team as a whole but negatively affect the person’s scope to grow as an individual.
On the contrary, if you show resilience and strong leadership skills, they will take that lesson forward with them in the hopes of becoming more resilient themselves. It is so important to learn for your mistakes. Times during adversity can be a great teacher. Carefully evaluating every mistake, failure and obstacle, you will uncover a lesson that will be important for you to learn from to become a more resilient leader.
To maintain a resilient organization that is ready for anything, leaders need to do more than focus on their own resilience; they must become Resilience Leaders. Resilience Leaders model behaviors that build resilience, and by doing so, encourage their employees to do the same. They recognize when employees are struggling and have supportive conversations that demonstrate that they care. They help employees find solutions and a path forward - they simply produce a human driven organization.
Resilience Leaders actively foster their teams' resilience so that groups of employees become more capable than any one individual.
Here are just a few points that you as a resilient leader should be focusing on and offering support in:
Identifying common characteristics of low resilience in yourself and others
Engage in activities and use skills/tools that build your resilience
Model resilience skills and tools in your workplace
Support and mentor employees with low resilience
Evaluate your team’s resilience
Conduct an exercise to identify your team’s resilience strengths and weaknesses.
As a leader, you need to be coming from a strong base yourself. And let’s face it, the last 2 years have been pretty heavy going so it would be completely normal for you to be feeling a little stretched in the resilience department. Let’s get started in helping you become a resilient leader, what do you say?
Let me know what works best for you - reach out to me on LinkedIn
Productivity & Wellbeing Director
Check more info on our program to develop resilience in teams
What about learning how to create healthier and productive workplace - my chat with Chris Cummings from Wellbeing at Work Events. ✅ Check the recording: