Resilient leadership - a bedrock on which teams are developed
Leadership
Leaders are found in every pillar of society. The New Oxford Dictionary of English defines leadership as: ‘the action of leading a group of people or an organization' (Fraga, 2022). On the other hand, Bennis (2008) defines leadership as the ‘capacity to translate vision into reality, while John Maxwell (2002) states that ‘leadership is influence’. Many others define leadership in terms of traits, behaviours, competencies, activities, and results of leaders. Lowry (1995) for instance, notes that ‘leadership is like beauty; it's hard to define, but you know it when you see it’. From these definitions there are emerging themes of leadership which include acting in relation to others to achieve set goals.
The approach used by leaders to arrive at their expected outcomes depend on the leaders’ individual leadership styles and context. There are several leadership styles including autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire, and transactional leadership (Sosik, 1997). Leaders may prefer the application of one leadership style over another, although the changing dynamics in the work context may require a leader to apply different leadership styles to optimise their team’s expected goals.
In my capacity as a team leader within the health care sector, I have developed awareness of the leadership styles I naturally gravitate towards. These are servant, coaching and collaborative leadership styles (Harper, 2012). When exercising servant leadership, I aim to secure resources to support the needs of my team by helping colleagues to carry out aspects of their clinical roles so they can take care of the important tasks. I apply coaching leadership style when enabling individual growth and development; and collaborative leadership style to improve team dynamics and connection. These leadership styles are not exhaustive due to the changing dynamics of the health care service. I therefore adapt my leadership styles depending on individual, social, political, and structural context of the workplace.
Resilience
Resilience is a term often used to describe how well individuals cope in challenging circumstances. Lupsa and Vîrgă (2020) have described resilience as the capacity the employee has to sustain and bounce back from problems, conflicts, lack of success or a situation that may imply an increase of responsibility. Similarly, Cleary et al (2016) state that resilience is the capacity to thrive rather than just survive in high stressful environments. These descriptions on resilience are noteworthy and relevant to individuals of all walks of life, including those working in the public and private sectors; more so since the Covid-19 pandemic which significantly impacted the livelihood and wellbeing of people globally.
The health care service has been impacted by unprecedented changes since the onset of Covid-19 pandemic. This has resulted in increasing levels of mental and physical illness among patients and the workforce (Byrne et al., 2021). Subsequently compounding the impact of racial, economic (Abedi et al., 2021) and health inequalities (Bambra et al., 2020). Leaders and colleagues are therefore at significant pressure to explore immediate, short- and long-term solutions to address these disparities and inequalities.
Leadership requires a measure of resilience to keep focus on the vison of an organisation, while motivating, and influencing colleagues to work towards achieving set goals. It is therefore no surprise that the need to develop individual and team resilience is paramount if we are to thrive, innovate and improve performance. Some behaviours outlined below have been linked to developing resilience and can be explored to help improve health and wellbeing of colleagues.
Behaviours linked to developing resilience
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Social support and close relationships with family and friends
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The ability to manage strong feelings and impulses
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Good problem-solving skills
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Feeling in control
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Asking for help and seeking resources
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Seeing yourself as resilient
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Coping with stress in healthy ways
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Helping others and finding positive meaning in life
Emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence has been described by Goleman (1996) as ‘the ability to motivate one-self and persist in the face of frustrations, to control impulse and delay gratification, to regulate one’s mood and keep distress from swamping the ability to think, to empathise and to hope’. Emotional intelligence, resilience and wellbeing have a common thread in helping individuals to develop healthy coping mechanisms in the face of challenging situations or adversity. These attributes are therefore important in the ever-changing world context characterised by health and economic inequalities, political unrest, wars/threats of wars etc.
The varying demands of leadership can throw one out of equilibrium if the capacity to self-regulate emotions, motivate, empathise, socialise, and develop self-awareness in relation to others is compromised. If not addressed, this can have far reaching consequences on one’s health and wellbeing, performance, and work life balance. It is therefore important to develop emotional intelligence in any capacity and as a leader. Leaders can introspect and support their colleagues to recognise signs of stress such as high volumes of work, changes in work performance, conflict, withdrawal, relationships and family issues, and other lifestyle behaviours such as smoking and difficulty relaxing (The CIPD, 2022).
Concepts such as Comfort - Stretch and Panic model (Criado, 2015) can guide leaders and colleagues to have awareness about factors or demands that tip them off to a panic state with the aim of reducing their frequency. The goal is to develop work activities that motivate colleagues to operate within the comfort and stretch zone. These support productivity and wellbeing. Tools such as Wellness Action Plans (Bouras et al., 2018) can also support leaders and colleagues to identify factors that may cause stress and burn out; and guide them in seeking support to develop work emotional intelligence, resilience, and work life balance.
Mindset
Dweck (2017) a clinical psychologist and one of the world's leading researchers in the field of motivation and mindset, found that how people explain their own intelligence has a significant influence on their motivation, effort, and approach to challenges.
Mindset can be influenced by many factors including emotional intelligence, resilience, and wellbeing. Growth Mindset is the belief that one’s basic abilities and characteristics such as intelligence can be developed through effort and experience (Dweck, 2015). In contrast, people with fixed mindsets believe that characteristics such as talents and intelligence are fixed traits and may not invest energy or time to improve them. This can lead to biases and poorer learning outcomes (Vandewalle, 2012).
Mindset is integral in supporting individual effort and willingness to learn. Most people have a mix of growth and fixed mindsets (Dweck, 2016). It is therefore important for leaders to understand their own mindset, while also exploring mindsets of their colleagues, and working collaboratively towards developing growth mindsets in relation to staff wellbeing, career development, performance, and productivity at work.
The provision of learning and development opportunities on topics outlined below can serve to improve team dynamics and foster positive learning outcomes for all.
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Motivation and coaching
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Supervision and reflective practice
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Managing difficult conversations, giving, and receiving feedback
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Debriefing after challenging incidents
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Enabling, managing workplace change and creating a culture of open communication
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Self-awareness and teamwork
I therefore call on leaders and colleagues in all capacities to arise and commit to developing resilience, self-efficacy, and self-awareness by increasing capacity for leadership knowledge and skills. This will help leaders to navigate the complex systems of work and relationships, while making choices that promote their health and wellbeing, performance, and productivity within functional teams.
Why not sign up for a course on resilient leadership today and add new knowledge and skills to your leadership toolbox via The Estia Centre - www.estiacentre.org
About the author
Josephine Weddy works for South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. She leads a team which specialises in supporting the recovery journey of adults living with learning disabilities and mental health needs in community.
Josephine has 11 years’ experience in a variety of clinical settings including Forensic, Psychosis, Mood, Anxiety, Personality disorders and Learning disabilities.
Josephine holds an undergraduate honours degree in psychology and a merit in Mental Health Nursing. She has a keen interest in leadership development and empowering colleagues to develop their leadership skills and clinical competence to advocate for and deliver high quality and safe care to Service users and their families or carers.
Josephine spends her free time indulging in spiritual growth, love for poetry, music, dance, and improvement of her health and wellbeing.
References
Abedi, V., Olulana, O., Avula, V., Chaudhary, D., Khan, A., Shahjouei, S., Li, J. and Zand, R., (2021). Racial, economic, and health inequality and COVID-19 infection in the United States. Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities, 8, pp.732-742.
Bambra, C., Riordan, R., Ford, J. and Matthews, F., (2020). The COVID-19 pandemic and health inequalities. J Epidemiol Community Health, 74(11), pp.964-968.
Bennis, W.G., (2008). Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. Journal of Property Management, 73(5), pp.13-14.
Bouras, N., Davey, S., Power, T., Rolfe, J., Craig, T. and Thornicroft, G., (2018). Maudsley International: improving mental health and well-being around the world. Bjpsych International, 15(3), pp.49-51.
Byrne, A., Barber, R., and Lim, C.H., (2021). Impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic–a mental health service perspective. Progress in Neurology and Psychiatry, 25(2), pp.27-33b.
Cleary, M., Kornhaber, R., Thapa, D.K., West, S. and Visentin, D., (2018). The effectiveness of interventions to improve resilience among health professionals: A systematic review. Nurse education today, 71, pp.247-263.
Criado E., (2015) The Comfort Stretch Panic model as a guide to personal development. LinkedIn. Available online https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/comfort-stretch-panic-model-guide-personal-elisa-criado-king/ (Accessed 2nd July 2021)
Dweck, C., (2017). Mindset-updated edition: Changing the way you think to fulfil your potential. Hachette UK.
Dweck, C., (2016). What having a “growth mindset” actually means. Harvard business review, 13(2), pp.2-5.
Dweck, C., (2015). Carol Dweck revisits the growth mindset. Education week, 35(5), pp.20-24.
Fraga, A., (2022). An Ethical Leadership Approach for Complex Systems Integrated into the Systems Engineering Practice. In Emerging Trends in Systems Engineering Leadership: Practical Research from Women Leaders (pp. 261-280). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Goleman, D., (1996). Emotional intelligence. Why it can matter more than IQ. Learning, 24(6), pp.49-50.
Harper, S., (2012). The leader coach: A model of multi-style leadership. Journal of practical consulting, 4(1), pp.22-31.
Lowry, P.E., (1995). The assessment center process: Assessing leadership in the public sector. Public Personnel Management, 24(4), pp.443-450.
Lupșa, D. and Vîrgă, D., (2020). Psychological capital, health, and performance: The mediating role of burnout. Psihologia Resurselor Umane, 18(1), pp.7-22.
Maxwell, J.C., (2002). Leadership 101: What every leader needs to know. HarperCollins Leadership.
Sosik, J.J. and Dionne, S.D., (997). Leadership styles and Deming's behavior factors. Journal of Business and Psychology, 11, pp.447-462.
The CIPD (2022) Health and wellbeing at work survey shows the main causes of employee stress include (source Stress in the Workplace – CIPD 2022.
Vandewalle, D., (2012). A growth and fixed mindset exposition of the value of conceptual clarity. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 5(3), pp.301-305.
