Resilient leadership and how to achieve it

Resilient leadership performs best. It’s a statement that has held through decades of changing business landscapes. 

It doesn’t matter the type of company you work for or the industry you’re navigating: resilient leadership is the difference between success and failure. When you’re in a crucial decision-making role, a skilled leader who can adapt at will and perform under pressure will always stand a better chance of succeeding. 

Resilience is a broad term, sometimes too broad that it loses practical meaning, but this guide is designed to jump straight to the practical details, and let you explore your own capacity for resilience. It’s essential if you’re just about to take up your first major leadership position.

Resilient leaders are defined by their self-awareness and humility, their clear vision, their strong communication, their adaptability and their confidence. 

It’s often easier to define resilience in terms of companies. Here, the meaning is simply about withstanding disruptions and adapting quickly both to potential risks and opportunities. 

Zooming in on individual leaders is a little trickier because we’re not talking about numbers on paper as much as we’re talking about personal qualities. Things get more unclear here, especially when you consider how different each company can be. All will have their own specific definitions for a “resilient leader”. 

However, the fact remains that organisational resilience is impossible without personal resilience, so we should analyse what that means as best we can. 

Here’s a breakdown analysis of each of the five traits mentioned above:

Being a leader in business nowadays is a lot more responsibility. Experience is essential, but with the amount of procedures, lingo, compliance, and other components of modern leadership, you need dedicated training. 

While there is a wealth of knowledge bases available these days, you want one which can turn your skills and experience into a strategic advantage. This means tailoring your training experience to build on what you know and, crucially, work towards the kind of leader you want to be. 

Automatically, this sets you up for resilience from the start.

One of the biggest pitfalls in leadership is losing your ability to look inwards or listen to others’ feedback. Truly resilient leaders understand their strengths and limits. They’re open to questioning, quick to acknowledge mistakes and provide solutions, and never let ego get in the way of progress.

Resilient leaders can think clearly, even in a crisis. They don’t let pressure cloud their vision or give in to panic emanating from nearby. They keep a calm focus on the overall goals and only change them for good reason.

Resilient leaders are able to communicate well. That goes for short-term settings, where they may need to keep multiple stakeholders informed at once, and long-term settings, where activities like networking build a strong group of colleagues who are able to help no matter what the challenge.

Resilient leaders don’t resist change or panic at the idea of it. They embrace change as part of the job. If they need to change their own skills or ways of working to align with this change, no problem!

Resilient leaders display a quiet, yet steady and convincing confidence. This doesn’t mean they have all the answers, but they are able to inspire a belief in colleagues regardless of how challenging things get. Good leaders also make sure that this confidence never morphs into an inflated ego.

Resilient leadership is as much about leading with strength as it is about bouncing back from hard times. Exhibiting the qualities of a resilient leader makes you and those around you feel more confident and capable. 

In this day and age, training is what makes a resilient leader, because it hones natural skills and experience into something that makes a substantial impact on the ground.