Why Building Resilience Is A Top Skill For The Workplace

This includes family and relationship problems, serious health problems, or financial stressors.

But what does that mean for employees and leaders in the workplace? How does resilience play a part in the company and employee well-being?

And how can individual team members develop resilience skills to better the team as a whole?

Let’s take a look at some answers to these questions. We’ll also provide a step-by-step guide to developing mental fitness and mental toughness among employees and building resilience in the workplace.

Plus, we’ll show you how to become a resilient leader who is prepared to face stressful situations as they arise.

What is resilience?

There are many ways to explain what resilience is.

In the world of positive psychology, resilience is being able to recover and adapt quickly from a traumatic event or stressor. In other words, it’s a kind of inner strength.

Generally speaking, people consider others to be resilient when they:

• Have a consistently positive outlook
• Deal with each difficult situation they face with ease
• Don’t exhibit excessive negative emotions during difficult times

Resilience in the workplace can help people recover from challenging experiences. It can also assist their growth and development. Data from BetterUp members shows that those experiencing change also experience growth.

This is in part because having already dealt with a specific situation, employees are better prepared to deal with others.

It can be helpful to consider how physical resilience works.

If you go to the gym every day and lift weights, your muscles will grow more resilient to those exercises. You can use that increased strength in other situations, such as when carrying a heavy box of groceries inside.

Emotional resilience works in a similar way. When you practice resilience, it’s like you’re working out your ‘resilience muscle’, getting stronger every day.

Why is resilience important?

Given the evolving needs of organizations, growing resilience is a key strategic priority.

People will perform better if they aren’t just keeping their heads above water.

Instead, opportunities for growth and self-learning that come with change will energize them.

Let’s illustrate with an example:

Say you’re in a middle management role, such as a sales manager. Your team isn’t performing very well this quarter. It’s becoming a challenge for your mental health, productivity, and general well-being.

A manager with low workplace resilience is likely to crumble under pressure in this situation. This is going to have a negative impact on workplace culture and employee engagement. It may even further impact team performance.

You’re also likely to see that the manager’s lack of personal resilience affects team resilience.

A sales manager with a high degree of psychological resilience will likely overcome such a challenge with ease.

They’ll shelter their team from pressures (where appropriate). They’ll also bring in further workplace training or procedural efforts to get their team closer to expectations.

Workplace stress takes a massive toll on the American workforce.

It results in 120,000 premature deaths per year and makes up 5-8% of total annual national healthcare costs.

So, developing a resilient workforce is also important for influencing positive health outcomes.

Resilience in the workplace improves organizational and employee performance

In today’s organizations, resilience has become a key human trait required for peak performance. It’s an increasingly important characteristic for organizations to cultivate in employees.

Research shows that resilience can be a powerful buffer.

It enables organizations to remain profitable and competitive, even during turbulent times.

In their book “The Agility Factor,” Williams, Worley, and Lawler highlight:

• Organizational agility highly correlates with organizational resilience.
• Both factors determine the adaptive capacity of an organization.
• This adaptive capacity enables organizations to perceive and respond to changes quickly.

Resilience also shapes the way employees respond to and manage the stress of change.

BetterUp Labs found that employee resilience is associated with decreased stress. We also found that people with low resilience are four times more likely to experience burnout.

Resilience is also associated with increased work engagement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. This is likely because people who are better able to bounce back from stress and adversity can apply those skills to the workplace.

Rather than giving up due to the inevitable setbacks they encounter in the course of their work, they’re able to carry on and focus on the big picture.

The importance of resilience in leaders

The resiliency of leaders impacts how they lead. It also impacts the performance and engagement of their teams.

We’ve found that when leaders experience stress, they engage in fewer leadership behaviors.

These include:

• sharing optimistic visions of the future
• setting ambitious goals
• communicating confidence in reaching those goals

Leaders are also less likely to engage in fundamental management behaviors such as:

• clarifying roles
• designing goals
• recognizing performance

Instead, stressed leaders are more likely to take a passive approach to leadership. They’ll only get involved once there are performance problems. They might also avoid making decisions or taking responsibility altogether.

This can have a trickle-down effect on their teams. It influences employees’ attitudes and behaviors about work.

In contrast, resilient leaders are more likely to engage in leadership behaviors. This includes providing creative ideas, problem-solving, or encouraging others to contribute meaningfully.

What does resilience look like?

What makes some employees more resilient than others? What are their resilience examples?

It’s not that resilient individuals have fewer stressors at work. They are just better equipped to cope with the challenges they face.

A 2003 study highlights some characteristics that resilient people embody.

These include:

• Having a realistic sense of control over one’s choices
• Understanding the limitations over such control
• Seeing change as an opportunity or challenge (rather than a setback)
• Secure attachments with others and the ability to engage their support
• Personal goals
• Strong sense of humor
• Patience
• High tolerance of negative affect
• Optimistic outlook
• High level of adaptability

You can distill these characteristics even further:

Research shows that resilient employees engage in three specific behaviors. These help them remain focused and optimistic despite setbacks or uncertainty:

Emotional regulation

This skill involves the ability to watch, recognize, and respond to our emotions effectively, so they don’t impede our functioning.

Developing strong emotional regulation skills helps build resilience. It allows us to keep functioning through a wide variety of internal experiences, including those that are difficult.

For example, having the ability to notice when something a coworker says bothers you lets you pause and make a decision about how to respond.

Taking a few deep breaths and then calmly and logically addressing the issue is generally better than storming out of the room.

Self-compassion

This behavior focuses on bringing mindful, kind, and forgiving attention to our experience. It aims to reduce harsh self-criticism.

It can help support resilience because it helps us soothe difficult emotions and find sources of motivation.

For example, consider the reaction you might have if you are denied an internal transfer to an aspirational role.

Self-compassion allows us to recognize our disappointment, sadness, and insecurity as normal. We allow ourselves to feel it rather than beating ourselves up for both the failure and not being over it the next day.

This doesn’t mean wallowing, but it acknowledges and honors our humanness in a way that is ultimately strengthening.

Cognitive agility

This skill involves recognizing when our thinking about a situation has negative results. Then, we shift how we think about it in a way that benefits us.

It helps support resilience because it allows us to continue functioning regardless of the situation.

For example, consider a situation where your boss makes a big decision about your department that you disagree with. Perhaps they didn’t consult with you first, and you feel they should have.

You might feel you’ve been disrespected or that your manager has purposefully left you out of the equation to get their way.

Cognitive agility allows us to consider all possible aspects of the situation. Perhaps they need to make a decision instantly, or maybe they don’t believe it’s an issue that concerns you, and you have a mismatch of expectations.

This kind of resilience will give you the ability to discuss such issues with decorum and openness to the other person’s viewpoint.

Of course, resilience applies not only to events such as this. You can also use it on a daily basis to navigate smaller uncomfortable or stressful situations.

For example, consider what happens when you realize you were left off a meeting invitation.

You can choose to tell yourself a story about an act of disrespect from your coworker. Or the story can be about the kind of annoying mistake you yourself also often make.