Leader Resilience
Why This Matters
Most leaders are operating from a skewed perspective of resilience, and it's limiting their potential in ways they may not realize.
After coaching business owners and CEOs for over a decade, I've discovered something that's transformed how I think about leadership resilience.
Leaders want to build a more resilient organization. Leadership teams are working on becoming more resilient. But here's what I've noticed: most leaders are operating from a skewed perspective of resilience, and it's limiting their potential in ways they may not realize.
We often think of resilience as weathering storms and getting back to business as usual. We celebrate quick recoveries, rapid returns to pre-crisis performance levels, and the ability to restore familiar processes after disruptions. We measured resilience by how fast we could bounce back.
The business owners and leadership teams who consistently outperformed their peers weren't necessarily the ones who bounced back fastest from challenges. They were the ones who used challenges as springboards to bounce beyond where they started.
While some leaders spent months trying to recreate their pre-disruption operations, others used the same disruptions as opportunities to reimagine their approach. The difference wasn't in their circumstances; it was in their fundamental understanding of what resilience actually means.
What Research Really Says About Resilience
Research reveals something fascinating: when significant setbacks occur, organizations respond in one of three ways. They can experience what researchers call "reintegration with losses," becoming permanently less capable than before. They can "bounce back" to their pre-setback state, restoring what was. Or they can "bounce beyond," emerging stronger, smarter, and more capable than they were originally.
Here's the key insight: resilience isn't defined as the ability to return to a previous state. It's defined as "the ability to adapt positively to conditions" through "a dynamic process evolving over time." Notice those crucial words—adapt and evolve, not restore and return.
True resilience involves cultivating adaptability and insight to thrive in adversity. It's about transformation, not just restoration.
The Hidden Costs of "Bounce Back" Thinking
In my work with leaders, I've observed several patterns that emerge when leaders focus on restoration rather than adaptation.
The Innovation Blind Spot: When leaders are laser-focused on getting "back to normal," they often miss the innovations that emerge naturally from constraint and challenge. Some of the most significant breakthrough solutions I've seen have come from businesses that had to rethink their approach due to external pressures.
The Rigidity Trap: Organizations that focus primarily on bouncing back often become more brittle over time, not more resilient. They invest heavily in defending against the last crisis rather than building capacity to handle whatever comes next. This creates a false sense of security that leaves them vulnerable to new types of challenges.
The Opportunity Cost: Perhaps most significantly, I've watched business owners spend enormous amounts of time, energy, and resources trying to recreate outdated systems instead of building better ones. The effort that goes into restoration could often be better invested in innovation and growth.
The Energy Drain: Teams become exhausted when they're constantly being asked to work harder to recreate something that may no longer be optimal or relevant. This creates a cycle where everyone is working harder but not necessarily working smarter.
What True Leadership Resilience Looks Like
Some common approaches that I've seen set business teams apart:
They Reframe Disruption: Instead of viewing setbacks as temporary deviations from their plan, resilient leaders treat them as valuable information about what needs to evolve in their business. They've learned to see challenges as data rather than just obstacles.
They Embrace Learning Opportunities: These leaders use difficult periods as intensive learning laboratories. Rather than just enduring until they can return to familiar patterns, they experiment, gather insights, and iterate their way to better solutions.
They Build Forward: Instead of asking "How do we get back to where we were?" they consistently ask "How do we use what we've learned to get to where we need to be?" This subtle shift in questioning leads to dramatically different outcomes.
They Develop Adaptive Capacity: The most successful leaders I work with don't just build systems that can survive stress—they build systems that actually get stronger and more effective under pressure.
My Own Learning Journey
I learned this lesson in my own leadership experience. Earlier in my career, I fell into the same restoration trap that I now help my clients navigate. I measured my own success by how quickly I could return after setbacks, missing opportunities for growth and improvement that were right in front of me.
That experience taught me something valuable: sometimes the things we're trying so hard to restore are not worth preserving in the first place. The discomfort of change often signals that evolution is needed, not that something has gone wrong.
The Ripple Effect of Getting This Right
When leaders truly embrace resilience as adaptive growth rather than restoration, the impact extends throughout their entire organization and often into their industry. I've had the privilege of watching this mindset shift transform teams in remarkable ways.
Some of my clients have used regulatory changes as opportunities to completely reimagine their service delivery, turning compliance challenges into competitive advantages. Others have used business disruptions to discover entirely new revenue streams and customer segments they never would have explored otherwise.
These business owners didn't just bounce back from their challenges; they used their challenges as launching pads to reach heights they never could have achieved without them.
Interested in a practical tool to assess your resilience? Sign up for complimentary member access to our Leader Insight Tools.
References
Mosteanu, N. R. (2024). The role of transformational leadership in fostering innovative work behavior: The mediating role of organizational resilience.
Connor, K. M., & Davidson, J. R. T. (2003). Development of a new resilience scale: The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC). Depression and Anxiety, 18, 76-82.
Kohlrieser, G. (2024). Resilient leadership: Navigating the pressures of modern working life. IMD Business School.
Smith, B. W., Dalen, J., Wiggins, K., Tooley, E., Christopher, P., & Bernard, J. (2008). The brief resilience scale: Assessing the ability to bounce back. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 15, 194-200.
