How to be a more resilient business leader

From developing a positive personality to seeing setbacks as opportunities for growth, here are five ways that business leaders can develop resilience.

What makes an Olympic champion successful? Some researchers have found that Olympic gold medallists believe that resilience plays a key role in their success. Calvin Coolidge, the 30th US president, once noted in a printed pamphlet by New York Life Insurance Company, where he served as a director, that “nothing in this world can take the place of persistence”.

Those same researchers also studied the resilience of other high achievers, which included successful people from the worlds of sport, business, law enforcement, medicine, media, education and politics.

They found that many of the following strategies were consistently mentioned as ways of developing resilience.

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View decisions as active choices, not sacrifices

This helps maintain a high sense of control over the situation, which is something that the brain craves. If you view your decisions as sacrifices, you will always be focusing on what it is that you have given up. By viewing them as active choices, you focus more on what you need to do and what you stand to gain by doing it. See setbacks as opportunities for growth.

Failure, disappointments and setbacks are inevitable. The challenge is not in never failing, but in learning how to fail better. This can
be done by asking yourself what you could do differently next time and what you have learned. Other strategies that help someone fail better are to actively seek out feedback and to not get defensive when receiving it.

Develop a positive personality

This includes being open to new experiences and being optimistic, competitive and conscientious. Another key part of this is being proactive and not waiting for things to happen in the hope that they will fall into your lap.

Use the support available to you

Asking for help is the hallmark of a resilient performer. It has been found to act as a stress buffer and improve coping, as well as improving mood. This is why the NHS urges people to connect with others in order to improve their wellbeing.

As poet John Donne once said: “No man is an island”. The more that we isolate ourselves, the more we brood over bad decisions, which increases our stress and frustration.  

Asking for help not only makes you feel better, it can also help you perform better. In a recent study of more than 300 people, researchers found that having deep, meaningful relationships with the people you work with improves performance. 

They also found that colleagues who had good personal relationships had more trust, support and pride in their work.

Identify your motivation

Olympic champions developed resilience by identifying what their motivation for succeeding was. This could be making their family proud, achieving something that no one had ever done before, or the quest to be world number one.  

So identify why you’re trying to achieve your goal. This will help boost your motivation and determination, especially when you have a setback or your goal seems far away.

Help employees

Studies have shown that many work-based programmes have helped employees develop resilience. The authors of one of the largest reviews of this study found that resilience training can improve personal resilience, mental health and well-being in employees.

As we enter an era of economic uncertainty, resilience could be particularly important. So view decisions as active choices, fail better, use the support around you and have a clear sense of purpose.

Bradley Busch is a psychologist, author and director of InnerDrive