Building Resilience

Resilience involves learning in the face of adversity, stress, or crisis. Leaders learn to persevere in the face of cognitive, physiological, and environmental challenges. Leaders foster efficacy, the belief that one is capable of success, by supporting learning and development through coaching and mentoring. Leaders balance measured optimism with depressive realism. Leaders build resilient organizations by planning for failure, fostering innovation, facilitating social networks based on positive thought and action, demonstrating a time orientation based on achievement over time, and valuing the development of self and others. In this chapter we explore how leaders learn to deal with difficult situations, work through their fears or hesitations, and respond to failure. Leading can often be challenging; however, with knowledge, confidence, and a desire to learn, leaders can overcome many challenges. We learn from frontline army officers, from a lab experiment designed to help a patient with a crippling fear of snakes, as well as from other situations. Leaders build resilience in themselves and in others through learning, and specific factors enhance or prevent this learning. Resilience describes the ability to adapt in the face of adversity, stress, crisis, and error.