EP92: Building Resilience as a Self-Aware Leader
THE ABILITY TO BOUNCE BACK
Resilience broadens the possibilities and keeps you moving forward
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(The notes below are only a brief summary of what is discussed in the podcast. Be sure to listen to get all of the goodness! If you would like a full transcription of the episode, please send an email request to: angie@angie-robinson.com. We’d be happy to provide that!)
In the last two episodes (posts), we talked about accountability in leadership. We started with self-accountability and then moved into fostering a culture of accountability while holding others accountable.
A skill that goes in hand in hand with accountability is that of resiliency. When accountability enters the picture, we are taking responsibility and ownership for results…and mistakes. When there are mistakes made or results aren’t what we were looking for – we are then facing adversity. Maybe we didn’t sign the client we were hoping to sign – and that’s a big loss for our sales goals or maybe our team didn’t complete the project on time, which threw off every other department and caused some disfunction. Maybe your presentation on a new process didn’t get received well and the organization isn’t on board – so you have to start over.
When you face adversity, hardship or disappointment in your leadership – resilience is a skill that will help you get through.
The definition of resilience is this: the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties.
And – as a side note - the higher level the position – the more resilience that is necessary. You have more responsibility – deeper and broader – and the ‘weight’ of that responsibilities can be ‘heavier’.
How Resilience Helps in Leadership
The skill of resiliency can help leaders to:
Recover from setbacks quickly. Often, time is of the essence. Dwelling on setbacks is usually more detrimental to the situation. Bouncing back quickly can drastically impact the results you are looking for.
Navigate through challenges. With resiliency - our lens is widened and we are able to navigate through vs. only seeing things through a narrow view.
Adapt to change. Change is constant and brings about all kinds of emotions and tactical pivots. When we are resilient - we can adapt to change in a more effective way.
Find creative solutions. Again - being resilient opens up possibility. It’s within that possibility that we can find creative solutions and keep moving forward.
Make quality decisions. Self-awareness allows leaders to recognize when they might be experiencing doubt, fear, or stress that could cloud their judgment. Resilience helps them make decisions with a clear and rational mindset, mitigating impulsive or emotional reactions.
Inspire others. Resilient leaders serve as role models for their teams. When they display resilience, they inspire and motivate their employees. This fosters a culture of perseverance and determination, which can be instrumental in overcoming obstacles and achieving long-term success.
Improve physical and mental health. This, in turn, allows them to sustain their leadership roles over the long term and lead by example in prioritizing well-being.
What We Know Resilience IS and IS NOT
Here are some things that we do know about resilience.
Humans are naturally resilient. You can probably think of times in your life when you already HAVE been resilient!
It is something that we build - - continually. There is a common myth that people who are resilient do not suffer, or suffer less, from difficulties or adversity. We actually need to experience adversity in order to build our resilience. It’s those experiences and what we learn from them that are the key to building our resilience.
Self-awareness, awareness of available choices, making decisions and taking action are key to building resilience.
It’s also important to look at what resilience is not.
Resilience is not a trait that people either have or do not have. It involves behaviors, thoughts and actions that can be learned and developed in anyone. Resiliency is a state that anyone can attain.
Being resilience doesn’t mean that you are a superhero - - can conquer all. It can show up differently based on past experiences, societal conditioning, beliefs, etc. And a safe environment must be present as well.
Being resilient doesn’t mean that you don’t have human emotions. Life is 50/50. The situation itself may cause emotions like: frustration, fear, anger, doubt, stress. It’s not helpful to pretend those emotions don’t exist. What is key is how you manage them.
You Will Still Feel Uncomfortable Emotions
In those times of adversity where resilience is needed in order to keep moving forward in a useful way – there is some type of emotion that is being experienced.
Most often, it’s an uncomfortable or ‘negative’ emotion. It might be things like frustration, anger, disappointment – and stress. This is really important to bring light to.
I like this quote from Victor Frankl, who was an Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor and who wrote the best-selling book, Man’s Search for Meaning, based on his experiences in various Nazi concentration camps.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” – Victor Frankl
This quote reinforces that we all have a choice about how we react to adversity. There may be an attitude or belief that you’re a victim of events and therefore nothing you can do about it – but I would challenge that – or encourage you to challenge that - in order to develop a more effective personal resilience strategy.
It is helpful for you to know what situations cause you stress most often – how that shows up for you – and how it impacts others. Knowing your own triggers and typical responses can more quickly ‘raise the alert’ that there is a choice and to pull out your resilience.
This starts with the observation about what happens to use physiologically when under stress – leads to a narrowing of our perception of possibilities.
When we are resilient we can manage those responses better and this leads to maintaining or widening our perception of possibilities
However, how you act on those emotions does impact how you show up and your ability to keep moving on.
Decide what you would rather feel and what thought can support that.
It’s not ignoring the emotion – but temporarily setting it aside.
In the situation - resilience may require you to put the emotion aside for a bit. However, you may need to revisit and process that ‘negative’ emotion - otherwise it might manifest in other unhelpful ways.
Factors of Resilience
Research shows that there are several factors that show up in people who are skilled in resilience. Things that resilient people do. As I briefly go through them, allow yourself to reflect where you see yourself at the moment. You may feel stronger resonance with one or two factors than with others. (note: this is based on research conducted by Insights®)
Those with high resilience have built up the following areas.
The first four are mostly inward focus:
Self Awareness – this speaks to perceived strengths and includes ‘knowing how I feel in the moment’ .
Self Regulation – this emphasises the self management process based on detecting and managing changes in emotional state.
Self Efficacy – self efficacy is more about capacity and skills in planning and accomplishing tasks and your belief about your own capacity, behaviour and skills in doing so.
Self Care – encompasses many of the physical, mental and emotional aspects of our well-being which impact our resilience.
The second four have mainly an outward facing focus – on factors external to ourselves:
Acceptance – seen in the research as a vital aspect of resilience. It’s about being present and making peace with what is.
Meaning and Purpose – often underestimated how powerful meaning-making can be in forming attitudes that help build resilience by placing current hardship in the bigger picture of “building bridges to a fuller better constructed future” based on a larger sense of purpose.
Improvising Solutions – this is a crucial factor in life as a whole as we often do not have all the resources we would ideally like.
Connection – this is important because the research says it’s a fundamental aspect, and possibly the most important aspect, of being resilient.
I encourage you to think about:
Which two resilience factors stand out as being your strongest? Why (specifically) did you choose those?
Which two resilience factors stand out as being most underused? Why do you think that is the case?
Applying Your Knowledge
Developing resilience is not only about raising awareness - it is also about applying that awareness in action and applying new insights and knowledge in practice. Without the latter we will be less able to strengthen our resilience – we need both.
We can get in our own way and be resistant to changing habitual responses and therefore deprive ourselves of the opportunity to learn and grow and become more resilient.
Here are six signs that you (or someone else) are resilient:
You fail hard and fast, but you don’t let that derail your vision.
You are aware of and manage your thoughts and feelings.
You flip your language. Blockers become challenges!
You know your strengths and weaknesses – and those of your team.
You’re not afraid to ask for help or support when you need it.
You reflect on mistakes and lessons learned, but don’t dwell on them.
What do you think?
How resilient are you? Are there situations where you could work to build resilience? How will you do that? Is there an opportunity do some resilience building as a whole team?
Links
Episode 09: The Magic of Mindset
Episode 10: Thought Work - Top 10 Tips
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