Why leaders need to take workplace resilience seriously

One of the reasons why leaders need to take workplace resilience seriously is that it creates an organisational culture that is fit for the future.

Almost every one of us has an awareness that we are living in times of massive change. The old world is passing away and the emergent world is not yet in full view.

Given the globalised nature of our world now, this level of disruption is maybe without precedent in all of human history. And although the order that awaits us beyond the current, chaotic winds of transformation is not yet known, we can clearly see what’s being left behind. 

When it comes to how leaders lead, how organisations work and how business gets done, mechanistic thinking is one such thing that is being left behind. It belongs more to the past than the future. 

How does the departure from mechanistic thinking relate to being ‘future fit’ and the need to take workplace resilience more seriously? 

In the epoch that we’re now moving out of; the age of oil, cars, plastic, and endless consumer product driven growth, (essentially the pre-internet age), it made sense to view things as knowable, predictable and controllable. 

And compared to the era we’re now entering, they were! 

Back then change was more episodic. But now, all is flux. And embedded in this milieu, organisations find themselves being constantly shaped by, and in turn shape, that sea of change. 

To make sure that the organisations they lead are future fit, leaders need to take workplace resilience seriously. 

Resilience is a lens that recognises that to thrive in an environment of constant change, people and organisations must:

• Have heightened awareness of the present moment

• Be skilled at balancing challenge with support 

• Embrace the need to adapt and experiment as opportunities for learning and growth

• View the capacity of the individual employees to thrive as inseparable from the organisation's capacity to do so

Due to the rapid nature of change now, knowledge gained through analysis alone is not enough to maintain the level of present moment awareness that organisations need to survive and prosper. 

By the time the present moment has been thoroughly analysed, it is no longer present. Leaders who take workplace resilience seriously understand that organisations have to be sensing as well as analytical for their knowledge of the present to be complete.  

If team members are encouraged and equipped to be in touch with their whole intelligence, namely that instinctive knowledge that arises from dropping in more often on the sensing and embodied self, then this enhanced capacity for present moment awareness will become an asset of the organisation as well as its individual members. 

There are simple methodologies that enhance the awareness of the teams’ ‘sensing self’, and leaders who take workplace resilience seriously use them: 

Balancing challenge with support 

Leaders taking workplace resilience seriously begins with the understanding of what resilience is not. 

Resilience is not about training the team to absorb ever increasing levels or stress with ever decreasing levels of support. It is about organisations living by the wisdom of  ‘up the challenge, up the support.’ 

Our ability to identify and lever whatever resources are available to support ourselves and those we work with, and an organisation's ability to provide support that corresponds to the level of challenge the team is faced with, are key to thriving through change.

Experiment as opportunity for growth

Organisations survive and grow using experimentation. It’s the creative capacity of a business that keeps it going through tricky times. 

Providing the necessary space and resources for members of the team to experiment, and to fail in the process of finding successful ways to grow into change and innovate is essential and leaders who take workplace resilience seriously know this.

Individual capacity is organisational capacity

The resilience of every single member of the team counts. 

The strength and resourcefulness that each individual brings to bear on their role will impact on everyone else, and the organisation itself because the dynamic interrelationship of its people is all an organisation really is. 

When leaders take workplace resilience seriously, they understand that investing in the skill, knowledge and motivation that  each individual needs to maintain their own resilience is an investment in the organisation as a whole.  

Leaders who are ready to move away from the mechanistic thinking that views everything in the organisation as made up of separate and reducible parts, they are leading extremely well. 

They are the leaders who see employee mental health as separate from employee ability to manage relationships and time or the teams’ ability to enjoy working together as separate to the ‘real’ objectives or the company.

They are the leaders who can instead understand that everything can only be understood relationally and in context, are the leaders who will be able to ensure that the organisations and the people they lead are fit for the future and able to constantly grow through constant change.