How can businesses enhance the resilience of their executive leaders or senior teams to increase the performance of their organisation? Ahead of our HR Leadership forum with Bill Lawry, CEO & Founder of Ascend, we share what resilience is and its key dimensions.
What is resilience and why is it important to measure?
It takes strong resilience from leaders and individuals to sustain peak performance in today’s challenging times and to bounce back from the regular setbacks that life throws at us. To meet and exceed targets in 2020, organisations must understand how resilient they really are and the overall abilities of their leaders to promote a sustainable high-performance culture within their teams.
Here are the five key dimensions that organisations must excel in to be resilient:
1. Emotions
2. Mindset
3. Meaning
4. Energy
5. Leadership
1. Emotions
Calm, collected and resilient leaders are able to recognise and manage their emotional states during stressful and trying times. They are also able to identify the emotions of others and modify their behaviour accordingly, especially if they have triggers that can cause them to think and behave in unhelpful ways. Research shows that those with strong social support networks are likely to be more resilient and bounce back from setbacks better too.
2. Mindset
Adopting the right mindset is crucial to becoming more resilient. Getting a sense of perspective, being optimistic and seeing challenges as opportunities (as opposed to threats) are all helpful in maintaining and enhancing resilience. It’s also important to cultivate discipline around focus, prioritisation and goal setting.
3. Meaning
To be resilient, leaders and individuals must understand their purpose – why they do what they do. Knowing and being true to their core values is also key.
These two things become their true North, helping them direct their energies and focus when the going gets tough. If they are able to align what they do with their purpose and values, they are more likely to be persistent in pursuit of their goals within the organisation and resilient to the challenges they face.
4. Energy
Leaders and individuals only have finite reserves of energy, so they must invest, manage and spend their energy in a way that will allows them to consistently perform at their best, peak at the right times and work at the required pace. This is very important for powerful resilience and cultivating a sustainable high performance culture within teams. This comes down to being proactive about the way leaders and individuals integrate sleep, healthy eating and exercise into their routines, as well as being aware of the things that drain them – and avoiding them where possible.
5. Leadership
Executive leaders must set the climate which cultivates and facilitates their team members and colleagues to being resilient. This is more than just being a role model. This is about creating an environment of psychological safety, where people feel they can be their most authentic selves, aren’t afraid to fail and are provided with the necessary support and challenge to succeed.
To view the full article from Ascend’s website, please click here.
