4 STEPS TO BECOMING A RESILIENT LEADER IN MANAGEMENT
A leader can have all the right qualities but if they lack resilience, they’ll lack impact. Why? Because a leader without resilience will give up.
Resilience gives you the ability to respond well to challenges, disappointments, and failures. Resilience is all about mindset – a mindset that is fixated on growth.
No one needs resilience in an organisation as much as a manager. Not only are you dealing with your own setbacks, you’re dealing with other people’s, something that can be incredibly stressful and challenging since their success reflects yours. And not to mention, in stressful and challenging times, those same employees are going to be looking to you for support, motivation, and stability.
Practising resilience leadership as a manager is a powerful tool. It’ll not only impact those around you by providing them with mental strength and motivation, but it’ll impact the way you personally handle setbacks. It’ll allow you to think critically in the moment, whilst looking towards how you can grow from it.
But how can one become more resilient? It takes discipline, patience and a lot of self-awareness. Resilience can be broken down into 4 different areas (CCL)
THE 4 AREAS OF A RESILIENT LEADER
PHYSICAL RESILIENCE
Your body’s ability to respond well to stress.
MENTAL RESILIENCE
Your mind’s ability to think critically.
EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE
The ability to regulate your emotions.
SOCIAL RESILIENCE
Your ability to communicate with others.
HOW PHYSICAL RESILIENCE MAKES A GOOD LEADER
This is all about how you look after your body to be able to perform well, communicate well, and think well as a manager.
It may sound too simple to make a difference in your resilience but you can’t expect to be able to withstand inevitable challenges that come with being a manager if you’re not taking care of yourself. By this I mean drinking 20 cups of coffee before 10 am and not staying up until 2 am probably isn’t the best idea.
You’ll be far too irritable and far less capable of thinking critically and handling conflict. So save yourself and your employees further stress by getting enough sleep, being mindful of what you eat, and keeping active.
HOW MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE MAKES A GOOD LEADER
Management is mentally challenging and no matter how much you try to want to have resilience, you can’t conjure it up from nothing.
Mental resilience allows you to have the mindset and ability to think critically and combat challenges with a positive outlook. In management you can’t always predict when you’re going to have to use a lot of mental strength to get yourself and others through a pressing situation – but you can prepare for it.
And a large part of this is through intentionality. Intentionality to take a moment to think before you act, as well as intentionality to regulate your emotions – this is where emotional resilience comes in
This takes true self-awareness, a key aspect of emotional intelligence. No one can be resilient until they realise the areas that are stopping them from being resilient. Self-reflection is key as a leader because only then will you be able to analyse past situations, what went wrong, and how you can improve.
Anger happens. Feelings of doubt happen. The temptation to give up happens. The feelings in themselves aren’t bad, it’s how you process them when they come.
HOW SOCIAL RESILIENCE MAKES A GOOD LEADER
Any manager knows that people are a great test of your resilience. Not just the resilience to not give up, but the resilience to continue to remain calm and professional at all times. People can upset you, anger you and disappoint you. But as a leader, you can’t walk away from handling people, you just need to work on how to handle them in a way that is manageable to you and productive and mindful towards them.
Similar to the previous point, you need to be self-aware. Be aware of when a conversation becomes unproductive or passive-aggressive and choose the best option moving forward. Do you need to reschedule the conversation? Do you need a third-party present? Have you just lost focus on the main topic and need to refocus?
Social resilience also means accountability. Whilst people may upset you, you also may upset others and the longer you think you’re right in every single circumstance, the last likely you’ll be able to withstand differing opinions and conflict. Hold yourself accountable and reflect on conversations that have been had and how you could’ve handled it differently.
Stress naturally causes people to say things they don’t mean. And whilst you need the emotional resilience to withhold a hurtful comment, if the hurtful comment comes out, you need the social resilience to clean up the mess. What you don’t do is say one hurtful thing and all of a sudden you don’t have the self-control to stop, apologise, and move forward.
- Written by Oliver Howson
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