Developing resilient leaders
Of course all of our clients have been affected in some adverse way by the events of the last 18 months. Like everyone else, they have had to take difficult decisions and make painful changes to re-configure their business for a changed climate. However, what has also been striking is how quickly some have bounced back. In recent months, we have seen clients launch new products, move into new or adjacent markets, develop their talent, recruit, focus on increasing market share and confront sacred cows – bold moves at the best of times, and even bullish in the current climate.
What enables these organisations to turn the corner quicker than others? Of course factors like industry sector, geographical footprint, financial exposure and even a bit of luck, play a part. What about the mindset and behaviours of leaders in these organisations? How do they stay focused and optimistic where others can't see beyond the next crisis? What can be learned from these leaders that we can use to equip others with the capability to cope with intense pressure, uncertainty and overwhelming adversity?
One of our clients, a household name and global player, asked us this very question. While the business had never had it so bad, the Board recognised this was the time their leaders most needed an opportunity to make sense of their experience, to learn from one another, to equip them for the tough times ahead and develop their capability to get the best out of their people.
To support them, we designed a development programme. To stretch our own thinking, we delved into the organisational research on sustained success; we reviewed historical accounts of leadership in the face of adversity; we drew on our observations from organisational consulting. Soon we found ourselves on a path back to our own back yard – the field of clinical psychology. The clinical literature on resilience – defined broadly as the ability to cope with adversity and bounce back from setbacks – provides some powerful insights into what it is that predicts our ability to cope in the face of overwhelming adversity, trauma or loss.
We translated a broad expanse of research into a coherent, practical and evidence based model with an emphasis on supporting business leaders to boost their personal resilience, and to foster this in their teams. The model is summarised below.
Cognitive resilience is about the way we think about and make sense of our experience. In the context of job losses, a ruthless drive on efficiency, increasingly long hours and gloomy forecasts one could be forgiven for thinking "What's the point?", or "This is out of my hands" or "Things are just going to go from bad to worse". We all have these sorts of thoughts – it is their frequency and persistence which is important here. If we think this way on a frequent and persistent basis, guess what happens? This thinking starts to have an impact on the narrative we create for ourselves and others, and soon has an adverse, knock-on effect on our motivation and our behaviour.
So the first building block – Cognitive resilience – is about building optimism. Not a blind faith that things will turn out OK, but a capacity to take a balanced view and to see opportunities (as well as challenges) when the chips are down. Drawing on one of the most powerful tools in cognitive therapy, we coached managers in skills to identify and challenge negative beliefs and unhelpful thinking patterns.
Let's look at behavioural resilience. When faced with a crisis, many people approach it with what we term an external locus of control. They perceive that the problem is too big for them to influence. They do not see themselves as active agents in the solution. They wait for someone else to bail them out, for a change in circumstances or for the problem to simply go away. This pattern of behaviour has been termed 'Learned Helplessness' (Seligman, 1967). The phenomenon was originally observed in dogs whose control over adversity had been manipulated – and it is the very same pattern we see in people who become depressed. In organisations we see a lesser, yet no less corrosive form of this same phenomenon. This occurs where people feel disconnected from one another; where decision making, problem solving and innovation are seen as someone else's job and where there is a lack of clear accountability.
In contrast, take the example of one of our clients. In the depth of the crisis, people did not sit back. Managers volunteered for pay cuts and put themselves forward for additional duties over and above the day job to drive efficiencies. Why? Because people believed they could make a difference. They also felt a deep sense of loyalty to one another and the business. This exemplifies what one may term an internal locus of control.
The other thing we have noticed as a by-product of this recession is that organisations' social networks become fragmented as people leave, are moved or are simply caught up in crisis management with little time for lunch or socialising after hours. What we know is that social support is one of the strongest predictors of successful coping under pressure.
So, our intervention here involved introducing leaders to this concept and helping them develop solution focused coaching skills, and place a renewed emphasis on investing in new social networks across the business.
Finally we looked at emotional resilience. Many people assume that work is not the place for strong feelings – anger, frustration, anxiety and sadness – and go to lengths to suppress their feelings. The truth is, these are fundamental human emotions which are inevitable at work given the combined pressures, politics and personalities. Managing these emotions both in the moment and in the long term are critical resilience building skills. Recognising that all of us have our own coping strategies and release valves to manage strong feelings, rather than prescribe techniques, we encouraged leaders to share their tips and tricks with one another. These proved more creative – and often more entertaining – than anything we could have designed ourselves.
So does it work? Preliminary evaluation data will be available shortly. I'll post an update when it comes through.
Craig