When challenges face you, do you let go and flow, or do you hold on tight?

Recently at CLPL we have been able to support and work alongside a number of leaders going through EXTREMELY challenging circumstances:

• Mental health episodes

• Organisational restructures

• Management buyouts and mergers

• Debilitating physical health issues

• Unexplainable tragedies and political upheaval

And that’s alongside their day job.

With many of these leaders, CLPL were already working before the unexpected happened. We’d been focused on Positive Leadership resource development but little did any of us expect these particular challenging circumstances. And that’s the thing about life and work; we never do quite know when we might need to dig deep and/or when we wished we’d taken better care of ourselves and others.

Seeing leaders develop these capacities and apply them in action is perpetually inspiring and it has been a privilege to support them through such challenging times. So clients; we are in awe of your resilient leadership. Thank you for increasing our resilience as we enter this busy final part of 2024.

If we’re not yet working together, we’d love to share some ways you can be flexing your Resilience muscles too.

Here are 8 steps you can take to help boost your Resilience

Let’s start by making sure we understand the term. When we talk about Resilience, we do so in terms of Positive Leadership and the ALIGHT model (Lucey & Burke, 2022) rather than any old “resilience”. Historically resilience has just been about keeping on going by any means. Now we know much more about sustainability and future proofing in leadership, and resilience is not just about keeping going but doing so in a way that brings the best out of you and others for now and in the future.

Resilience is a key component of Limberness one of the six Positive Leadership resources we have researched in depth and supported thousands of leaders to develop at CLPL (you can read more about it here)

Try these proven, practical actions:

1. Recognise how context and culture dilutes or improves resilience.

   What are you noticing about context and culture for you right now? What can create more of a resilient culture for the humans around you?

2. Create methods to help manage emotional and cognitive patterns.

   How can you develop more emotional control of your triggers?

3. Actively build your recovery capital.

   How can you build your resilience resources (energetic, emotional, spiritual etc) and take care of yourself?

4. Engage your parasympathetic nervous system.

   How can you regularly tap into your body’s natural relaxation system, to relax and recover every day and throughout the day?

5. Increase your experience of positive emotions.

   For example, through positive reappraisal, how can you see the opportunity in the situation?

6. Build positive processes and capacities.

   How can you be even more courageous about what you set out to do? Show yourself compassion? And be more grateful?

7. Develop your knowledge and use of your character strengths.

   How do you remind yourself of your strengths?

8. Cultivate self compassion (mindful of pain, shared suffering, soothing self love).

   How do you show yourself compassion? How do you soothe and nurture yourself so you are more capable to lead?

These steps may sound simple, but they are incredibly powerful - don’t just believe us, try it for yourself, like many of our amazing clients.

If you’re ready to develop your Resilience and that of your teams and organisations, please do get in touch.