Resilient Leadership
It seems that the default way to survive in leadership in today’s fast-paced, high pressure, competitive world is to do more and feel less.
And ‘building resilience’, it appears, is how leaders seek to do so.
Many of my clients come to coaching seeking to ‘build their resilience’. I’m always curious about what they mean by the word ‘resilience’. So, I ask… For many, it means:
Taking on more and more responsibility, seizing all opportunities, compromising sleep, family and leisure and never breaking.
Tolerating highly dysregulated behaviour from the very people you are working so hard to serve (staff, clients, board members, other stakeholders) – and being unaffected by it.
Surviving, unaffected, in a toxic, high stakes, high accountability, competitive environment.
Withstanding harsh criticism delivered without compassion.
This kind of ‘tactical’ resilience serves us well - until it doesn’t. Many of us, myself included, got to where we are today, in part, because we built this kind of resilience.
But, we know that this is not sustainable. There comes a point where ‘coping and tolerating’ aren’t good enough - we turn around and wonder what it’s all for and start searching for an alternative. At least - that’s what many of my clients bring to me - they are longing for another way to keep going and thrive as they do so.
In Maggie Farrar and my leadership programme, “Inside Out: A Pathway to Resilient Leadership”, we are advocating for a different, more strategic, perspective on building resilience that we think is far more conducive to high levels of effectiveness AND enhanced wellbeing.
We borrow from the definition of resilience developed by Taryn Stejskal: “The ability to effectively address challenge, change, and complexity, and in doing so, to be enhanced, not diminished by these experiences.”
This conception of resilience permeates all my work with individual clients, teams and organisations.
What is Resilient Leadership?
For me, it starts with a deep connection with ourselves. We know what is going on with us on the inside - we are self-aware. We build the capacity of ‘mindsight’ as Daniel Siegel calls it where we can step out of autopilot & notice how we are seeing and experiencing the world around us.
It is the combination of connection to self, self-awareness and mindsight that is key to unlocking all the other drivers of resilience.
From here, we can…
Recognise when we are triggered (by an email, a conversation or an event) – when our sympathetic nervous system kicks in and we go into fight, flight or freeze – and pause to go inwards and ask our system what it is telling us. We can also preempt triggers ahead of time.
Go back to our core purpose - be clear on our intention in each moment, task or relationship. We can align with our values and what matters most to us so that we can live and lead in alignment.
Pro-actively choose our next step and show up how we want to show up - maintaining our composure and sense of calm.
Offer ourselves compassion when things are hard - allowing us to feel and process what is necessary to move forward, learn from our mistakes and not dwell on them.
Be more curious and open to the people and the world around us - letting go of our assumptions and our judgements, resentment and blame by offering compassion to others.
Let go of the things we cannot control so that they don’t weigh us down - enabling us to better tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty.
Listen to, understand and take care of our own needs so that we can take care of others.
How do we develop resilient leadership?
The way we support leaders to build resilience on the programme - and how I do so for myself and with my executive clients - is by combining regular, deep reflection and introspection with daily mindfulness practices.
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Viktor Frankl
Coaching is one the most powerful and durable routes to develop deep levels of self-awareness. As a coach, I still need and benefit from regular, deep reflection with expert coaches and supervisors. I’m not sure that will ever change.
But, to achieve real equanimity and resilience in-the-moment and in the long term, we need to learn to be more present so that we can capitalise on greater levels of self-awareness.
Reflection and mindfulness go hand in hand - both necessary and sufficient conditions to achieve greater levels of resilience and wellbeing in the long term.
If you’re intrigued and want to find out more, send me a message and let’s chat.