resilience leadership

Cue scene. Seven exceptionally joyous guys skip in, surrounded by chirping birds and scurrying mice. Leading the way is a beautiful princess in a glamorous gown. They’re singing and dancing together in perfect harmony and you can practically feel pure happiness radiating off of them.

Plot twist. They’re not at a fancy ball… they’re working.

For most people, that’s not how a typical workday goes. If it does, more power to you. But many of us have lost that magical feeling toward our work. 

To reinvigorate it, do what Snow White and the seven dwarfs do. No, don’t hire adorable forest animals, but instead, whistle while you work. Whether literally (if it won’t disturb co-workers) or metaphorically, whistling while you work combines something that ignites joy with something you need (and maybe even deep down, love) to do.  

Before picking your tune, it’s vital to learn why finding joy in your work is important and how to build mental resilience to acquire that joyous feeling. With these resilience principles and the guidance of a resilience speaker, your exciting leadership journey will begin, not into a magical forest but toward rediscovering passion, creating mental health resilience and awakening a positive mindset.  

Model Resilience Leadership with These 3 “Whistle” Principles

Building resilience doesn’t happen overnight. It takes commitment, dedication and consistency, but the return on investment is massive. 

By following the principles of resilience, you will discover how to build mental resilience, which is a strong foundation for increased happiness, decreased stress and improved well-being, both personally and professionally. 

Reframe

Everybody experiences setbacks and failures. It is part of life and out of our control. But what is within your control is how you respond. Every time you encounter a challenge, it’s a new opportunity to determine who you are. 

A reframed mindset of resilience is empowering, encouraging and life-changing. 

By reframing your mindset, you open up opportunities for new possibilities. You can do this by training your resilience mindset. For example, when you say, “I love my life,” even during difficult times, your brain will search for evidence to support that statement. Initially, this may take some thought, but soon you will organically find something to appreciate every day, even if it’s as simple as your health or breathing fresh air. 

When you reframe your mind, you allow creativity and fresh ideas to flow freely and a more positive life to emerge.

Recalculate

When you embark on a road trip and encounter a roadblock, you click “alternate route” on your GPS with barely a thought. You can do the same in life.

When an obstacle arises, take a moment to recalculate your route. Part of that is mining your experiences to unearth little gems — lessons learned or creative opportunities. No matter how small or large a failure, challenge or experience is, you can always learn from it by investigating further. 

Once you’ve identified an alternative opportunity, hit “go” on your recalculated route. Your journey may not be what you expected, but you will reach your destination and enjoy exciting new adventures along the way.

Recover

A critical part of learning how to be more resilient is recovery. Have you ever started your day with high motivation knowing that when your head hits the pillow that night, everything on your “to do” list will be completed? Yet as the day goes on, you lose steam and your list gets pushed to tomorrow? 

This can happen when we don’t rest and recover.  

It’s impossible to thrive when you’re tired and overwhelmed. You may be functioning at only 30% capacity and getting nowhere quickly. If your phone was at 30% battery, you would likely head to the nearest charger without a second thought. 

Why don’t we give our bodies the same respect?    

By choosing to make recovery rituals a priority and giving yourself permission to focus on greater self-care and self-love, you create space for new opportunities to arise.

Add Resilience Principles to Your Leadership Style and Create Improved Business Practices 

The same principles that are vital to a happier and more well-rounded life apply to your work. Reframing your mindset, recalculating your journey and allowing your mind and body to recover are all factors in how to be more resilient.

After all, we spend just as much time at work as we do at home, if not more. 

By applying the principles of resilience in all aspects of life, you will begin feeling happier, healthier and more harmonious. And when you discover how to be more resilient, before you know it, you might even start whistling a tune that would make the forest animals proud.

Model Health and Wellness

The health of your organization begins with its workplace culture and employees. As the leader, it’s crucial that you model and encourage a healthy lifestyle at work. By showing this is important to you, your employees will see you as an example to be more resilient and thrive in all areas of life. And when challenges arise, you will all be equipped to bounce forward through them.   

You can foster a healthier workplace by offering opportunities such as a mini-gym, space for naps, weekly yoga or meditations sessions or by inviting a mental health keynote speaker to motivate your team.

In addition to these resources, ask employees how you can best support them. By modeling health and wellness at the workplace, you can build a safe work environment that employees will appreciate. They will be more focused, determined and give their best at work.

Manage Stress at The Workplace

The key to managing stress at the workplace is reducing anxiety levels. This is not an easy undertaking, especially while managing your own stress, but it matters. When you help employees regulate stress, you cultivate resilience and create a strong, agile and reliable team.

Elevate your resilience leadership and implement these practices every day to build daily resilience:

  • Focus on what makes you happy
  • Reframe your mindset to love what you do
  • Get enough sleep
  • Make healthier food choices
  • Engage in physical activity

If you’ve followed these tips but are still not able to manage your stress, it’s important to seek professional help.  

Work Purposefully

When you love what you do, it will positively affect all aspects of your life. Unearthing a deeper purpose in your work builds personal and professional resilience. If your employees’ passion for work is lagging, it’s important to investigate the root cause. Oftentimes, a lack of understanding or unclear expectations is the issue.  

Resilience and leadership are intrinsically linked. 

As the leader, it is up to you to ensure your team understands their roles, tasks and how their work serves the organization’s mission. This creates feelings of confidence in their work and in themselves, which makes them feel more fulfilled and happy at the workplace. Practicing resilience leadership cultivates a workplace culture that employees are excited to be part of, even in the midst of difficult situations.

Maintain Perspective

A key component of leadership and resilience is maintaining perspective. Perspective means being mindful of the harmony between elements that make up our lives as humans, including work. When you focus on how each component is part of an overall puzzle, it helps understand how critical each piece is and how they fit together.

As a leader, maintaining perspective is imperative, no matter the situation. When you model this resilience leadership, your team will follow. It is a crucial part of how to build resilience at work because it allows you to successfully handle anything that comes your way.  

Maintaining your perspective will also help prevent burnout or allow stress and depression to rule. 

Provide Opportunities and Rewards for Continuous Learning

Cultivating a workplace culture of growth, innovation and learning is vital to success. Whether in business or life, as the saying goes, “If you’re not growing, you’re dying.”  

You can support your employees by offering digital learning courses on a variety of topics that facilitate growth, encourage them to hone their skills and discover new ones.

Another impactful method is to invite a resilience speaker to talk with your team about personal and professional growth. A resilience speaker will share insights into purpose-driven resilience leadership, change management, teamwork, how to build resilience at work and more.

Create a “Got Your Back” Culture

Snow White went about her work with ease, knowing the seven dwarfs (and her magical forest friends) had her back. This level of confidence comes from a supportive team with a leader who understands how to build resilience at work

When times get tough, it’s crucial for employees to know they have a support system to lean on. A “got your back” workplace culture makes employees feel appreciated and valued and infuses them with the strength necessary to bounce forward through challenges. 

This culture, fostered by your resilience and leadership, also contributes to decreased turnover. Employees who feel supported are more loyal and less likely to leave for a new job. In the event an employee does move on, the culture you’ve created will help attract and retain top talent. Cultivating a “got your back” culture is essential to maintaining a high-performing and happy workforce.

How to Support Your Business Growth with a Resilience Speaker

Snow White motivated her co-workers through joy, praise and the deep relationships they built. In the real world, you can inspire your team to feel happier, more fulfilled and productive by focusing on building mental health resilience. Add a mental health keynote speaker to that potion, and before you know it, your employees are guaranteed to find magic in their work again.  

So pucker your lips and whistle away, you’re ready to embark on a joyous and harmonious journey!