The Importance of Resilience
In psychology, resilience is generally defined as the quality of adapting well in the face of adversity. How an individual deals with a tragedy, trauma, or unfortunate event can predict their growth. In simplest terms, resilience is the ability to bounce back. Theoretically, the more practice people have with getting back up after a challenge, the faster and more capable they are next time.
What is Resilience for Leaders?
Business leaders know full well the importance of resilience. Because a lot more is a stake, a leader’s ability to nurture resilience while balancing leadership shows true success.
Why is Resilience Important in the Business Context
Business, like life, is never free of conflict. Leaders would do well to accept that there will continually be ups and downs. As such, a leader’s role is to push through with a brave face of hope for their team, never succumbing to natural responses to challenges. While people are inclined to feel frustrated, overwhelmed, or hopeless, work goes on. It’s okay to feel these things and as a leader to empathize and communicate with others. However, resilience comes in when a leader does not allow such knee-jerk reactions to hold them back.
What Does it Mean to Be Resilient?
To practice the art of jumping back into action after any periodic downfall, leaders must steel themselves. Real strength in business comes from seeing the opportunity in every problem. While it’s too simplistic to say, “Be optimistic,” in this case, the sentiment applies. A resilient leader will not only see the positive but extract the benefit from every adversity. A work conflict will instead look like a sign – a good propellor of change and improvement. A low-performance report will instead look like a cheat sheet for what a business to focus on for improvements.
More than anything, a resilient leader needs to be a chameleon: adaptable. A leader bogged down by the negative impact of a challenge will only further slow down the problem-solving process.
How to Practice Resilience
Leaders can improve resiliency by cultivating self-discipline. Having a good balance of control and flow is critical to addressing issues as they come. Another way to enhance resilience is to invest in mental health. Having a strong mental foundation is key to holding up under pressure.
Resilience is like a muscle. For both in personal life and leadership roles, one’s strength and skill evolve with each challenge. In particular, leaders must learn resilience fast to thrive under pressure and keep going without further time costs.