Leadership is synonymous with challenges and tough decisions. Being a leader requires balancing multiple skills, meeting business needs and producing exceptional work whilst simultaneously maintaining a productive team. In this constantly changing modern world, adaptability is indispensable. The facade of good leadership is easy to come by, but true leaders have a distinct ability to foster the right environment for growth. When it comes down to it, the best leaders are those that hone in on their humanity. Resilience is a skill crafted through experience and effort. One of the most important skills a strong leader will have, it exudes confidence, accelerates decision making and underpins adaptability. Here, we explore 3 key components that contribute to developing resilience and building resilience for better leadership.
Growth Mindset
A growth mindset is a fantastic tool for building resilience. This mindset is defined by the fundamental belief that intelligence and ability are not finite but can evolve over time. Embracing challenges and viewing failures as opportunities for learning. The ability to continuously adapt progressively relies on leveraging lessons from experience to adjust direction. Each experience, whether resulting in success or failure, contributes to an expanding pool of knowledge, facilitating the refinement of overarching goals. This mindset isn’t about avoiding failure, but harnessing the resulting data from its lessons to leverage us in the right direction.
Do Hard Things
Building resilience is like building muscle, thriving on consistent, incremental challenges. Just as a muscle strengthens with progressively heavier lifts, resilience develops by regularly stepping slightly beyond our comfort zone. Doing difficult things. We all have different views on what we find difficult, finding something that challenges you and tackling it is the way forward. This could be initiating tasks we’ve procrastinated, altering habits we no longer desire, having tough conversations, public speaking or taking an ice bath. Enduring and completing challenges add strength to our resilience. With a growth mindset, each hard task brings the added benefit of a valuable lesson learned, making subsequent challenges more manageable.
Emotional Intelligence
The ability to effectively navigate challenges often relies on emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence encompasses empathy, composure, and adaptability. Self-awareness and an understanding of our own emotions alongside the ability to empathise with others allows leaders to discern the most effective directions for communication, conflict resolution, and decision-making. Emotional intelligence equips leaders to recognise limitations, know when to rest and when to take decisive action. These are some critical elements for maintaining balance and clear thinking in the face of adversity. Check in with your own emotions, and take note of how other people are feeling. This data will help guide your decision making when navigating the challenges that come with leadership.
When it comes to the assets of good leaders, resilience sits at the forefront of importance. Cultivated through a growth mindset, the willingness to approach adversities, and emotional intelligence, resilience empowers leaders to not only face challenges but emerge from them stronger and more knowledgeable. Taking every experience as an opportunity for learning, where failures are not stumbling blocks but stepping stones to progress. By embracing these aspects of building resilience for better leadership, leaders not only enhance their own strength but harness a greater ability to inspire and elevate those they lead.