If you look at any successful businessman, whether a space entrepreneur or a stationery seller, you’ll likely discover that they have a resilient personality. Resilience plays a pivotal role in any leader’s career path.
In this day and age, a lot of organizations value proactive employers. Every business is built around the idea of knowing and preparing for the future. When coronavirus hit us all, the world found itself in an unpredictable predicament. Employees and executives were searching for answers everywhere.
Fortunately, even in a scary pandemic, there are things that leaders can do to move their organization in the right direction. The ever-shifting corporate landscape is tied to resilience at work - it helps leaders make better decisions that will steer an organization in the right direction. Resilience is a personality trait and skill that is crucial for a leader to develop, so how can you, as a leader, become more resilient in the workplace? First things first, let’s look at some popular misconceptions.
Myths to dispel
The truth is that there are many myths in the building resilience book, and it’s important to dispel these before we continue. A major fallacy exists in the way that people perceive resilience. Although it is indeed a trait, it is more useful to think of it as a skill. If you’re thinking that you can only be born with resilience, meaning that it’s not able to be acquired by anybody, this is the core of the fallacy. Like any other skill, you can flex your resilience training muscles over time to become stronger and a better leader.
People also misinterpret resilience as overconfidence or arrogance. While it is true that resilient leaders seem self-reliant, tough, and unaffected by anxiety, what you see isn’t always what is true. Every individual, even the most resilient leader, needs help and learns from their mistakes.
While there is no one size that fits all way of becoming more resilient, there are key things that you can do. Building resilience training spans five unique areas: physical aspects, professionalism, social aspects, psychology, and finance. As a leader, when you’re building resilience at work, you need to address each area.
1. Professionalism
Let’s kick off the first of our five resilience factors by focusing on who a leader really is. In the workplace, building resilience in adults needs to start at the top and trickle its way down. Leaders are employees who need to take an active part in pursuing new opportunities for their company. There needs to be a certain level of innovation so that you can see an idea through to execution. Leaders ought to be adding attention to their surroundings, including what their employers are saying and doing, in order to grow their organization.
As a leader, it’s imperative that you monitor both your teammates and also your own performance. You can give constructive feedback and receive it. By doing this, you will be able to collaborate effectively whilst also keeping boundaries in place to promote a healthy work-life balance.
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2. Physical resilience
This time, many more people are working from home. This creates a lot of temptations that are unhelpful in the workplace, so it is important to emphasize the need for physical resilience. As a leader, adopt new habits and encourage your co-workers to adopt them too. Things such as regular exercise, meditation, breathing exercises, and a healthy diet are both great to adopt and fun to discuss with fellow employees. While, of course, you as a leader don’t want to overstep anyone’s boundaries, there is no harm in encouraging others to make better choices.
Leaders can make an effort to reward employees that participate in better habits and personal development. As an example, you could provide employees with workout apps classes to help physical well-being and mental health. Those that participate could be rewarded within the organization. Any employee needs to feel like they have a comfortable work environment to operate in. People need to have boundaries that will allow them to shift focus from their work to their personal life with ease.
3. Psychological factors
Recent times have been hard for the world of resilience psychology with the COVID-19 pandemic, but not all hope is lost. Try building resilience activities that focus on managing stress and anxiety. Employees need to be able to stay on top of things and manage their mental health.
Check-in with your team and ask each member where they are investing their energy. People like to feel cared about and listened to, so exercise active listening skills within the workplace and your team. Every employee needs boundaries, and you as a leader can encourage employees to better their mental health, offering incentives much as we discussed above.
4. Social aspects
Although the recent Coronavirus pandemic has encouraged us to socially distance, there are ways that leaders can engage with employees and have meaningful social interactions. You and your team members needn’t feel alone! Build up social resilience in yourself and others.
There are numerous things that you can do as a leader. Why not schedule lunch meetings or hangouts during the day? Some companies like to replicate ordinary aspects of corporate life via meeting services such as Zoom, for instance, scheduling in “Weekly Water Cooler” chats. Showing an interest in individuals and reminding them that they are much more than simple employees, will help everyone feel more motivated to work and perform.
5. Finance
Unfortunately, numerous employees have had to take on shorter work hours with cuts to their salaries. A lot of people have even been furloughed for months at a time, with no clear indication that their job will remain in the future. It has been a time of great uncertainty for all employees, but leaders need to be resilient.
Companies need to help all of their staff by offering financial and budgeting resources that will assist them during their current hardships. You, as a leader, need to develop a tougher skin and do some clever calculations to ensure that your company’s finances won’t plummet during a time where many businesses are crumbling.
One of the best things to do in building resilience is to think outside the box and come up with ideas for new revenue streams within your company. Are there opportunities that the coronavirus pandemic is, in fact, creating for your business? Perhaps there are gaps in the market that you can now fill? By exercising your creative problem-solving skills, you could save your job and other people’s.
Resilience is key to success
We hope to have demonstrated that you as a leader can grow stronger than ever before, even in spite of global hardships. The workplace is the perfect environment to build character and become the leader you’ve always wanted to be. Take note of any aspect of resilience theory that we’ve discussed, and try to apply these simple ideas today.
What do you do to build resilience in the workplace? Do you watch videos? Do you have a go at building resilience worksheets? We’d love to hear what you’ve tried so far and how it’s gone. Tell us about your experiences in the comments section below.
Author Bio: Emily Moore is an English & programming teacher with a passion for space and blogging. She believes that current exploration should be focused on preserving our planet’s resources. With satellites circling the orbit, it is easier to get relevant data on any environmental changes. This, in turn, should help people quickly address any challenges.
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