Briefing Note: July 2015So, what’s your resilience strategy? An approach to resilience that’s common among senior leaders is ‘being bullet-proof’. Of course there are times when wearing a suit of armour at work is the only way to survive. But trying to be bullet proof is risky as a long-term life strategy: it has downsides both for individual leaders and for the people around them. I’ve been reflecting on this since having a conversation about resilience, following my recent note on optimism. When I look at most leadership models they feature resilience strongly. For example here’s the Australian Public Service Commission’s lists of expectations of a resilient Deputy Secretary (my added italics): - Persists and focuses on achieving organisational objectives throughout periods of extreme pressure.
- Monitors own emotional reactions and
responds to pressure in a controlled manner.
- Retains focus on the end goal and overcomes significant barriers and obstacles.
- Rapidly recovers from setbacks.
- Displays a positive outlook in difficult situations.
There in the fifth dot point is what I talked about in my note on optimism. The second dot point, about controlled responses to pressure, has always made me think of people who fail
to control their negative emotions – their blame, their impatience, or their anger. Indeed I’ve written several times in these notes about how to deal with a boss who fails this emotional control test. What I hadn’t really reflected on was the risk to me, to my colleagues and to my friends and family, of an over-reliance on this capability for emotional control. The research that got me thinking about this downside of emotional self-control comes from Dr Barbara Frederickson. She has coined the term ‘positivity resonance’ to describe moments of genuine personal connection that can change the feeling of a whole day. She calls them
micro-moments. Although they are fleeting, her research shows that their impact on our wellbeing and that of people around us, is deep and long-lasting. Frederickson poses the big resilience question: ‘How do you handle stress?’
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