What does “resilience” mean to you? Believe it or not, a lot of professionals have the wrong idea about resilience. They think it’s about enduring. Resilience, though, isn’t just about survival despite the odds. Resilience isn’t taking hit after hit without getting knocked down. It’s not about how strong you are. Instead, it’s about bouncing back.
Here’s how to be a resilient leader…and what you should avoid when cultivating your own resilience!
What Resilience in Leadership IS:
Deconstructing Your Shortcomings
If resilience is about bouncing back, you’ve got to know what will knock you down. Your weaknesses and shortcomings are key because they’re the things that will cause you to fail. And if you don’t address them, they’ll eventually stop you from getting back up.
So, start with self-awareness. Lean into your strengths while identifying and deconstructing your weaknesses. You want to understand why you do what you do and what keeps you from making good decisions. Once you do, you’ll establish counterbalances that will make you a highly adaptable leader.
Taking Time to Respond
Resilience means rolling with the punches. Rather than thinking of it as endurance, think of it as adaptability. You’re not wearing down until you reach a breaking point – rather, you’re responding to each twist and turn in the road as a new opportunity. And every opportunity demand time and intentional thought.
It’s easy to have knee-jerk reactions to trying circumstances. Those reactions – your feelings, your thoughts, and first ideas – are almost never the right step to take.
Embracing Necessary Change
Do you embrace change, or do you fear it? We’re creatures of habit at heart, and there’s certainly something to be said for “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”
At the same time, change is an unavoidable part of the human experience. Resilient leaders aren’t interested in maintaining the status quo for its own sake. Rather, they’re more than willing to try something new when the old is no longer working. Embrace change. Initiate it. You won’t win every time, but you’ll flex valuable resilience-building muscles. That way, when the unexpected comes, you adapt all the better.
What Resilience in Leadership ISN’T:
Pretending to be Unaffected
Resilience doesn’t mean you’re never affected. As a leader, you may feel inclined to subdue your emotions, particularly in front of your team. And while I’m not suggesting you have that emotional outburst in the conference room, you’ve also got to be honest.
Some things you can take in stride. Others? Not so much. Be honest with yourself and with your support system about how you’re feeling. Pushing down your emotions will only make them more difficult to process, which can then cloud your decision-making and your ability to bounce back.
Letting Ego Take Center Stage
Resilience isn’t the same thing as tough guy swagger. Anyone can play tough – but are you the guy who gets the job done when push comes to shove? Don’t let your ego get in the way of good decisions. Resilience isn’t ignoring mistakes or pretending they didn’t happen. It’s assessing reality and choosing the best course of action, regardless of how bruised your ego or your image may be.
Avoiding Risk
Being risk-avoidant means two things: one, it means you have little to gain, and two, it means that you won’t ever have to be resilient. Without taking chances, you’ll never have to adapt. You’ll never achieve more success than the sure thing. And how often is that enough? Risk-taking is integral in growing a business. Be diligent. Be wise. But be willing to take necessary risks, even if things could go wrong.
After all, resilience is all about how you handle setbacks: not how you perform in ideal conditions.
Crafting the Image of Perfection
You’re not perfect. I’m not perfect, either! Leaders may find themselves tempted to paint an image of a man who does no wrong, but that’s not reality. You’re fooling yourself and no one else. Part of being a resilient person is being able to acknowledge, analyze, and learn from mistakes. If you don’t admit mistakes, you can’t learn. And you certainly can’t come back stronger.
I’d argue that that’s the heart of what it means to be resilient: to get knocked down and to come back better than before.
What does resilience mean to you? Share your thoughts in the comments.