In today’s complex and fast-moving world, resilient leaders are important for an organization’s lasting success. Resilience – an individual’s capacity to constructively adapt to stress and adversity – shapes an organization’s culture right from the top. Leaders, employees and the organizations they work for face tougher challenges than ever before due to ongoing shifts in technology, global events, and changing market conditions.
Consequently, developing resilience in leaders and leadership teams has become a key focus for many organizations.
What is Resilient Leadership?
Resilient leadership refers to the ability of leaders to effectively navigate challenges, setbacks, and uncertainties within an organization while maintaining a positive attitude, adaptability, and determination. Resilient leaders possess the composure to make swift yet thoughtful decisions and thoughtfully guide their teams through turbulent times without losing sight of the organization’s goals.
Develop Resilient Leadership in 4 Steps
Resilient organizational culture starts from the top and developing resilience in your team members is a key aspect of effective leadership. Leaders who focus on developing resilient employees can help them anticipate change, prepare for it and use it as an opportunity for growth, learning and success using these four tactics:
1. Identify Resilient Traits
The initial phase involves assessing individuals to learn how their traits compare to the natural traits of resilient leaders. Researching numerous sources, the following themes emerge as key traits for resilient leadership:
- Adaptability and Open-Mindedness
- Emotional Intelligence
- Problem-solving Skills
- Positivity
- Decisiveness
- Supportiveness
- Learning-Focused
- Coachability
- Responsibility
See how these map to TalentClick assessment dimensions here.
Identifying these key characteristics serves as the foundation for enabling targeted development within your organization. TalentClick, a global leader in employee assessments and workforce technologies, creates personality assessments that help you better understand your employee’s personality traits and tendencies. The Leadership Profile Assessment (LP) is an advanced solution that helps inform the hiring and development of your organization’s leaders. It determines their personality traits and provides insight into their leadership styles offering an in-depth look at their natural ability to handle change and difficult situations…and how to coach them in a personalized and impactful way
The Work Values & Attitude (WVA) assessment helps an organization understand how people will “fit” in certain roles and with their corporate values by providing a preview of their natural work values and ‘default settings.’ In particular, the assessment examines conformity, responsibility, coachability, positivity, aggression control, and open communication. These insights help determine person-organization fit and values alignment which can lead to increases in positive outcomes such as retention, productivity, and engagement, and decreases in negative outcomes such as turnover, management challenges, and poor culture fit.
Identifying employees who possess some of these characteristics is the first step to building a resilient organizational culture. The next step is to coach, train and develop these potential leaders in a personalized and impactful way.
2. Coach, Train and Develop Resilient Leaders
Once you’ve pinpointed employees who have personality traits associated with resilient leaders, you can develop a coaching plan for development in areas like decision-making, conflict resolution, and stress management. Given that most employee resilience training initiatives have relatively small and short-lived effects, the significance of conducting employee assessments becomes invaluable in shaping personalized and therefore more effective training programs. These assessments offer a comprehensive understanding of individuals’ strengths, potential blind spots, and behavioral tendencies, thus aiding in the development of more effective approaches.
By analyzing these insights, leaders can also tailor training content to align with an employee’s specific needs and learning style. It also enables them to create targeted programs that resonate with employees, enhancing engagement and retention of training material.
For instance, if assessments indicate a team member prefers hands-on learning, incorporating practical exercises or simulations into the training can be more effective for their development. Likewise, for individuals inclined towards analytical thinking, providing data-driven case studies might be more beneficial.
3. Teach the Importance of Learning From Both Positive and Negative Outcomes
Emphasize learning from failures and setbacks to build resilience. Using training and development programs to explain the role of failure in building resilience, encourages a culture where mistakes are seen as learning opportunities. Resilient organizations foster the ability to overcome challenges and grow from adversity. This, coupled with a supportive workplace culture, lays the foundation for nurturing resilient leaders.
4. Encourage a Supportive Work Culture
Leaders must encourage and demonstrate a supportive, inclusive, and collaborative workplace when building resilient leaders. In fact, 94% of managers agree that a positive workplace culture creates resilient teams. By encouraging employees to seek help when needed, offer assistance to others, and provide constructive feedback, organizations can build employees’ confidence and adaptability to withstand challenges better and become more resilient as leaders AND as a team.
Employee assessments enable organizations to understand the differences among employees, giving opportunity for appreciation and respect for their diverse approaches to work. This helps build a culture that values collaboration, teamwork, and mutual support. With this knowledge, leaders can leverage each employee’s strengths, allocate tasks more effectively, and mitigate potential conflicts by addressing differences in communication or working styles. Personality assessments also encourage open dialogue and empathy among team members, leading to better cooperation, increased trust, and ultimately, more cohesive and productive teamwork.
Build a Resilient Culture with TalentClick
Resilience, when ingrained in an organization’s culture, helps both individual leaders and teams to navigate challenges brought by changes in the workplace, technology shifts, global events, and market dynamics. Organizations with resilient leaders can more swiftly adapt, make decisive choices, and work together through adversity.
Employee assessments, such as TalentClick’s LP and WVA assessments, offer deep insights into employees’ traits, aiding in identifying and developing resilient leaders. This knowledge helps to shape tailored training programs focusing on resilience and fostering a supportive culture. Cultivating resilient leaders helps to build a culture where each member thrives, driving the organization and its employees toward success.
Try TalentClick’s Leadership Profile Plus to see for yourself!
