Resilience for Good

By Dr (almost) Patricia Armstrong OBE

Resilience has been getting a lot of bad press recently, someone even telling me it’s a “flawed concept”. Why should we have to keep being resilient when we should be looking after our wellbeing, stepping away from challenges and taking time to look after ourselves.  We shouldn’t be using “resilience”, or bouncing back again and again after setbacks, as a “badge of honour”. All of which I agree with.

BUT…and its quite a big but, life throws us difficult times, whether personally or professionally (not to mention a pandemic, cost of living, war, earthquakes etc…) and how do you get through those times if not with a bit of resilience? Academic research in this field started with studies which looked at why some children suffered more than others when going through similar traumatic experiences – with findings concluding that resilience had a part to play in good mental health and that the “healthier” survivors of concentration camps had a “mental shield” or inner psychological space that helped protect them. So, is there still a role for resilience in current times – to sit alongside wellbeing?

After being CEO of ACOSVO for almost 20 years, working with leaders across the length and breadth of the sector, I heard so many stories of resilience.  Leaders being resilience so they could live to “fight another day”, so they could do what needed to be done for the people they served (including the beneficiaries of their services, their organisations, or their teams). So, after all that time working with leaders, hearing from the front line, and offering support for them to be the best they could be as a leader, I went back to “school” to see if I could build on this learning!  I undertook three years of doctoral studies looking at resilience, specifically in third sector leadership. This was a whole new world for me, moving back to study after almost 25 years since I completed my masters (I could tell another story about my own resilience during this time). So, what I have found through my research:

As a very brief overview, most studies on leadership and resilience are not based in the third sector, they are mostly from the corporate sector, and mostly from the US. But I would suggest that much of what I’ve found could be transferrable, and in today’s world, I would argue that the third sector could be seen as leading the way in what I have called “holistic leadership resilience”.

I was studying resilient behaviours in third sector leadership as I wanted to focus on something we have control over (our behaviours), but the responses I got when I asked “what behaviours keep you resilient” were much wider than I had expected. They were holistic in two ways:

Firstly, although I asked about behaviours, the answers were much wider that purely behaviours.  I categorised these as “Behaviours”, “Mindsets” and “Factors”. It’s not just how you act, but how you think, as well as the environment you operate in. All of these elements have to be taken into account when considering resilience. As a shorthand: HR (Holistic Resilience) = B + M + F.

Secondly, although I asked about resilience as a leader in their role, the answers I got came from all parts of life. Being outdoors, exercising, having a laugh, playing with the kids, yoga, reading a good book…. all these non-work elements came into play.  Being able to make a difference, whether through work or not, finding your “tribe(s)” for peer support, knowing yourself (when to stop, what works for you etc) and acceptance of non-perfection (from yourself and others), were also included in the mix.

This is not as surprising as it may first seem, if you think how our working lives have changed, we now work at any time, from anywhere, from in person to virtual, on any device – the whole concept of work-life balance has been turned on its head. So why shouldn’t what keep us resilience to do this work not be much more holistic too?  Although the pace of change has never been so fast, it will never be as slow again – so we have to adapt to survive.  With current pressures, the importance of resilience and well-being must be better understood so that in today’s world we can focus on what keeps us well, what enables us to bounce back without draining our resources and what helps us stay well to continue to do essential work.  We can’t do this if we only focus on wellbeing and resilience at work, we must recognise that all elements of life come into play, i.e. holistic leadership resilience.

So, what next for me after 50,000 words on the topic for my thesis? I’d like to share my learning back with the sector, and more widely. Leaders across the sector have been my inspiration, I have seen amazing leadership in such challenging times, and I am in awe of the individual and collective endeavours that have been shown to make a difference through the leadership of the organisations you serve.  Before I do anything else, I want to acknowledge that, and say a special thank you to all those who contributed to the research.