Leadership Resilience

Hurricanes battering the Southeast, epic cold pummeling the North, and fires ravaging the West, it seems that calamity is everywhere. And with calamity comes the need for resilience. As leaders, we don’t often think about resilience as a skill. Yet, it most assuredly is. With the accelerating pace of work, constant change, and evolving technology, the skill of resilience is of paramount importance. The following is the definition of resilience:

The capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; psychological resilience is the ability to cope mentally and emotionally with a crisis, and to return to pre-crisis status quickly.

Here are the nine core elements of resilience that are pertinent to leadership.

1. Build & Leverage Strong Professional Relationships
   • Strengthen Support Networks: Put into play the strong support networks that you have built over the years. This includes outside resources, peers, and mentors. In times that call for resilience, these networks provide essential emotional support, as well as practical advice.
   • Communicate Effectively: Open and honest communication is essential when demonstrating resilience. Trust that has been built, coupled with established followership makes a leader’s communication impactful. Communication should also be channeled based on what the situation necessitates or via your preferred methods. Sometimes, picking up the phone or having a quick face-to-face avoids unnecessary frustration, preserving trust.
2. Foster a Positive Environment
   • Encourage Pragmatic Optimism: Leaders who maintain a positive and grounded outlook help others stay motivated during difficult times.
     Celebrate Success: Voraciously look for small wins and recognize them along the way. This will boost morale and build momentum.
3. Innovate Through Critical Thinking
   • Practice Problem-Solving Skills: Resilient leaders are nimble as they solve short-term, medium-term, and long-term issues. They also anticipate further challenges and plan to the best of their ability.
   • Be Resourceful: A hallmark of a resilient leader is to leverage limited resources and find creative solutions to problems. Frequently, the resulting solutions become permanent features of the organization.
4. Decide with Confidence
   • Hone Your Decision-Making Skills: Mistakes will be made. However, in times that call for resilience, selecting a direction is more important than perfection. While making the most informed decision possible, don’t forget to listen to your gut. Your instincts will often lead to sensible decisions being realized.
   • Adapt Quickly: Resilient leaders are flexible and open to change, which enables them to pivot as necessary.
5. Maintain a Long-Term Perspective
   • Commit to Your Vision and Purpose: Keeping sight of the organization’s vision, mission, and values help leaders and teams stay focused during turbulent times.
   • Practice Patience: Leaders understand that resilience often requires patience and persistence. This self-discipline helps leaders avoid making hasty decisions.
6. Help Others Be Resilient
   • Delegate: Effective delegation not only helps manage workload but also empowers team members, creating a more resilient organization
   • Develop Talent by Doing: Leading by example is an investment in the development of others. In the process, leaders build a stronger, more capable team that can weather challenges together.
7. Maximize Self-Awareness
   • Understand Your Stress Triggers: Identify what creates stress in you and develop methods to compensate or minimize the negative impact of your stressors. Professional burnout is frequently caused by leaders being overly stressed.
   • Develop Emotional Intelligence: This trait allows leaders to manage their emotions and to better deal with the emotions of others. There are four broad areas of EI: self-awareness, self-management, social-awareness, and social-skill. Understanding these major areas can help leaders triage issues quicker and determine if an issue is about a person or the group dynamic.
8. Maintain a Life-Long Learning Mindset
   • Embrace Challenges: View challenges as opportunities. Using proven and learned problem-solving skills to overcome challenges can lead to resilience and help leaders to stay motivated.
   • Grow from Failures: Instead of seeing failures as setbacks, resilient leaders see them as learning opportunities.
   • Focus on Education: Leaders should commit to lifelong learning to stay ahead of industry trends and develop new skills.
   • Seek Feedback: Receiving regular feedback helps leaders grow and adapt to changing circumstances. Whether from an executive coach, internal roundtables, or the Peer 360 process, gain information from professionals you respect and trust.
9. Prioritize Self-Care
   • Exercise to Win: Don’t just engage in “regular” exercise that meets the minimum for health. Leaders excel. Seek to have an exercise program that is rigorous and challenging. That vigor and drive carries over to the workplace. Often it can inspire others. Plus, your body will be able to weather the long-game, whatever that holds for your career.
   • Get Sleep: The mind and body of a leader is rejuvenated during sleep. Depriving yourself of sleep deprives your team of excellence.
     Monitor Nutrition: Good health requires organic food that has been minimally processed. Supplements are not a substitute for real nutrition. A balanced diet is crucial for maintaining the energy and focus needed to be resilient.
   • Protect Your Mental Health: Practices such as yoga, meditation, and relaxation techniques help to manage stress. The better you have a handle on stress, the more superior are the decisions you will make.

The Bottom Line
The skill of resilience enables leaders to navigate challenges quicker, drive changes easier, and maintain effectiveness under pressure. By focusing on key areas, leaders can enhance their response times, bounce back from adversity, create an advantageous path forward, and inspire resilience in others. In the process, they set the stage for their organization’s future success. When faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles, resilient leaders think of three simple words: “Bring it on.”

Be resilient my friends, and continue to make this year filled with success and meaning.

Until next time, be well.