The Leadership Quality You Can't Afford to Ignore

Doesn't it seem like just when you've got everything lined up, something unexpected throws it all off balance? I have experienced this, and see it happen to the leaders I work with all the time. In my engagements, I work as an Agile Director and Executive Coach -? a big part of the job involves helping leaders improve their teams and delivery. One simple yet crucial skill I focus on is resilience.

Rock solid or anti-fragile

Resilience - enduring, adapting and recovering from challenges. As well as being able to bounce back, being resilient involves anticipating potential issues, facing them directly, and creating an adaptable team environment.

Some of the best leaders I've worked with are the ones that are able to manage turbulence well but also recover quickly from challenges - many times working hard with their teams to assess and realign rapidly. Resilience isn't so much about being rock solid, its more to do with being anti-fragile - about using challenges and bumps to get stronger. Central to this strength is a leader's ability to continue to communicate a strong vision, maintain perspective, recognise that most challenges are seldom final and, consequently, through this mindset, galvanise themselves and their teams to bounce back rapidly.

The heart of resilience

One thing’s for sure - leaders with high emotional intelligence are masters at this. They are able to read the room, stay composed and provide support where it’s needed most, keeping everyone motivated, e.g. through workshops, regular feedback, and open dialogue. The key thing here is about making sure that understanding and empathy are a core part of your leadership - if you're lacking in that area, think about upping your game!

Planning with flexibility

In our world, a fixed plan is just a rough draft. Resilient leaders know this and plan for flexibility. Have a backup plan but always be ready to adapt to new challenges as they come, staying informed, agile and ready to pivot without losing momentum.

Knowing that no plan survives first contact with reality, we teach leaders to assign probabilities to the success of a plan. Knowing that the team believes a plan will deliver with a 75% confidence level already signals that there is that 25% chance that things won't work out, this helps leaders (and teams) to expect potential delays (you know something is going to happen, you just don't know what...) control what they can but when things do go awry - to bounce back fast.

A bounce back culture

What really makes a difference is building a culture that uses challenges as growth opportunities. This is where we encourage taking calculated risks and learning from the outcomes so that setbacks set us up for future successes.

Transparency and collaboration

You can’t underestimate the power of clear communication. When everyone knows what’s going on, the team is able to tackle problems together and confusion can be better avoided. This open exchange lets everyone from the top down contribute their best work.

The long game

Keep your knowledge up to date and encourage the same in your team. This way they can discover new methods and insights that might just transform the way you're working for the better - whether that be through greater efficiencies, innovations or anything else that can give your business the competitive edge.

Resilience is also about looking beyond the immediate. You must keep to your long term strategic vision, and know that overcoming adversity step by step, whilst progressively accumulating successes is the sure path to success and a resilient mindset.

Wellbeing at work

Let's talk about wellbeing for a minute. It’s easy to overlook this when deadlines are pressing and clients or colleagues are waiting. But I’ve found that taking the time for a team walk-and-talk, or setting up a quiet room where people can take a breather, actually pays off.? Mental and physical health are like the petrol in our tanks - if you let it run too low, or with low quality fuel, the whole machine starts to stutter.

More than ticking boxes

Here’s something I’ve noticed - the more diverse our teams, the sharper our solutions. By this I mean that every new background, every unique perspective adds layers to our thinking and resilience to our strategy. It’s like having a Swiss army knife - when challenges arise, we’re ready with a multitude of tools instead of just the one.

Smart use of smart data

Use data to look back on performance and also to predict what’s next. This might mean adjusting the plan before a potential problem even arises. It’s a bit like the weather forecast - if you know a storms coming, why wait for the rain to start pouring? The point being - be proactive with the tools you have!

Vital insights

And how about feedback? In our teams, it’s non-stop. Not in a 'big brother is watching you' way, but more like having a good co-pilot. Constant insights from all angles help us steer clear of turbulence before it hits. This loop keeps us all learning and adapting - not yearly, not monthly, but daily.

Keeping it clear

Lastly, transparency, which is the glue that holds all this together. We keep everyone in the loop, wherever they sit on the career hierarchy. When colleagues understand why decisions are made, they’re more likely to get behind them and push, rather than pull away.

There you have it

Resilience is about staying nimble, ready, and always a few steps ahead. With foresight, preparation, emotional intelligence, and a culture of adaptability embodied in leaders, these qualities can be instilled into our teams.