Resilience Does Not Begin With Strategies. It Begins With YOU.

Resilience is one of the most essential soft leadership skills for changing and challenging times. Leaders and managers need to be constantly developing the resilience of their people. Here are the seven most important qualities people need to develop if they want to bounce back from adversity in these turbulent times.

Develop self-awareness- so you know what's stopping you from being resilient.

The more we know and understand ourselves, the more empowered we feel. When we become aware of what makes us tick,what challenges and threatens us or heightens our anxiety, what creates overwhelm and stress, what keeps us awake at night, we can then take charge of it, rather than it taking charge of us.  We don't get stuck. We break through our stuff and move forward quickly. We are resilient.

Key question: What major aspect of your personality or life needs most work if you are to be a resilient person?

Develop a positive explanatory style.

We all have an explanatory style - a way we explain to ourselves why things happen. We can have a negative style where we see life as a conspiracy, out to get us, that disempowers us and makes us feel helpless. We can have a positive style that always sees a way forward, that is empowering and encourages proactivity. Only people with a positive explanatory style will be resilient.

Key question: How do you explain to yourself and those close to you why setbacks happen in your life?

Become proactive.

Resilience is a very dynamic and action oriented quality. It involves a response from the whole self - body, heart, mind and spirit. People who stay in difficult and challenging situations, resigning themselves to them and managing by disengaging and switching off because they feel powerless and helpless to do anything about it are not resilient people. To be resilient they need to make a proactive response.

Key question: How long does it take you, when something goes wrong in your life or work, to assume a proactive position that will turn it around - an hour, day, week, more than a week?

Be a problem solver.

Be someone who focuses on solutions, not problems, but be reflective enough to ask new questions that might generate new answers, not time-honoured solutions. Be constructive, strategic, analytical, goal focussed.

Key question: What qualities do you bring to problem-solving situations?

Develop emotional maturity and intelligence.

Be aware of your emotional responses to situations and experiences - fear, guilt, anxiety, depression, anger and frustration. Bring both your head and heart to those emotions so that your responses are informed by good, balanced judgment. Learn to exist creatively in tension and how to grow through pain. Resilient people do not suppress emotion, they take hold of it and use it to drive them to solutions.

Key question: What are the emotions that obstruct you from taking action and moving forward after adversity?

Look after yourself.

Alcohol, drugs, junk food, sugar fixes, cigarettes, sleeping tablets and caffeine do not produce resilient people. Healthy, natural, unprocessed food, exercise, water, time to small the roses, sleep, meditation, contemplation and reflection give people the energy, clear-headedness and focus they need to be resilient people.

Key question: How can you look after yourself and prime your body, heart and mind so that you can proactively respond to whatever challenges present themselves to you?

Embracing change.

Change is one of the only certainties in life. It brings with it unpredictability, confusion, uncertainty, paradox and ambiguity. It can shake our foundations and challenge our value systems, leaving us feeling insecure and vulnerable. Resisting change heightens its impact. Working with change, rather than being threatened by it, is what resilient people do.

Key question: What is it about change that is threatening to you?

Many of you reading this will probably feel that these 7 developmental actions are not specific enough for you to do anything about.

Developing resilience is about developing an inner strength and toughness. It is true that the changes we need to make within ourselves are difficult to make by ourselves.

This is where coaching or mentoring can be enormously valuable in facilitating transformative and developmental change.