How can leaders build emotional resilience?

Have you ever met an emotionally resilient person? Would you know if you had? Emotional resilience is an elusive quality to define, but most leaders know it when they see it. Emotionally resilient people seem to have an indomitable will, insatiable tenacity and an indefatigable commitment to their own personal vision. 

In a business setting, emotional resilience is the secret ingredient that helps leaders stay the course throughout tough situations. Whether you’re a small business owner in charge of a tight-knit network of employees or the CEO of an international company, developing emotional resilience will help you expertly navigate organizational challenges with ease. Let’s look at how coaching and thought management can help you cultivate emotional resilience and adopt a mindset that moves your business forward. 

What is emotional resilience?

Whether at home or in the office, emotional resilience refers to your capacity to use thought management to effectively overcome difficult moments. Being in charge of an organization during an unprofitable year or having to deliver difficult news to an employee are both instances where emotional resilience is required. Resilient leaders are able to quickly move past these situations without letting them “get the best of them” — instead of dwelling on difficulties, they look at future opportunities. 

What traits influence emotional resilience?

Emotional resilience is guided by a series of key traits. Some of them include:

• A positive outlook: Optimism might be the strongest trait in those with emotional resilience. Leaders with a positive outlook are able to find the silver lining even during turbulent times. More importantly, emotionally resilient people can understand, accept and account for negative outcomes while simultaneously focusing their energy on how to work toward positive opportunities instead.
  
  
• A strong sense of humor: Surprisingly enough, a strong sense of humor is one of the greatest common threads between emotionally resilient leaders. Being able to turn challenges into laughable moments allows you to see them as obstacles to overcome rather than threats to avoid.
   
• Compassion: Emotional resilience is a close cousin of emotional intelligence. The ability to understand the different perspectives of coworkers, colleagues, employees and external third parties — such as clients and shareholders — is an enormously powerful trait when it comes to moving past mistakes, learning from difficulties and overcoming challenges.
  
  
• Spirituality: While most people think of spirituality in terms of a religious connection to a higher power, any kind of connection with your spiritual roots is an indicator of strong emotional resilience. Engaging in journaling, meditation, yoga, or religious services are all ways to continue to cultivate emotional resilience. 

How to develop emotional resilience 

Some aspects of emotional resilience are out of your control. For instance, regardless of your natural disposition, you’ll become more resilient with age. By contrast, experiencing trauma can significantly decrease your ability to build emotional resilience. However, no matter how much emotional resilience you naturally possess, you can always further strengthen it. Here are some ways to do just that:

• Make strong connections: Building powerful connections with others is a great way to develop emotional resilience. Make your relationships with others a priority and find different outlets in which you can engage with your community at large.
  
  
• Engage in self-care: It’s hard to stay in control of your emotions when you’re tired, hungry, stressed, overworked or bored. Perform self-care in the form of regular breaks, vacations, time spent with family and friends, engaging in hobbies and more to make sure you’ve always got the capacity to contend with difficult situations in your work life.
  
  
• Invest in coaching: A strong coaching relationship is probably the number one way to rapidly build emotional resilience. A great coach can help you identify your natural strengths as well as what may be getting in your way of being highly emotionally resilient.
  
  
• Use thought management: You can’t fully control your emotions, but it’s possible to have a degree of control over your thoughts. Intentional thought management can help you build up your emotional resilience and become better at remaining calm even through difficult situations. 

How can leaders develop emotional resilience?

Just as people can cultivate emotional resilience in their personal lives, leaders can develop emotional resilience in their business lives, too. One way to develop resilience is to purposely put yourself in challenging situations and practice reacting to them accordingly. This doesn’t mean you should jeopardize your business pursuits just to build emotional resilience — it simply means you should be okay with the prospect of uncomfortability. Treat every tough situation as a learning opportunity to grow, change and adapt. 

Alternatively, if you’d rather not gain emotional resilience ad hoc on the job, investing in a coaching relationship can help you learn more about resilience before applying it to a real-world setting.

How does emotional resilience build excellent leadership?

Emotional resilience is a key quality for any leader to possess. Without it, a leader might perform just fine under ideal conditions — such as during a profitable business year or when no hard decisions need to be made. However, the moment layoffs, sagging profits, creative stagnation or other business challenges crop up, a leader lacking in emotional resilience won’t be able to quickly adapt to and overcome the obstacles that stand in their way. 

Emotionally resilient leaders, however, not only overcome difficulties such as these, but they also inspire those around them to continue to operate effectively even when the course isn’t smooth. That’s why emotional resilience is so important to build: more than simply making you a great leader, it makes those around you effective, competent and capable, too.  

The FOM Coaching™ Approach

By now, you already know that coaching is an important part of developing emotional resilience. But what kind of coaching should you invest in? Personally, we’re fans of our own strategy — the Frame of Mind Coaching™ approach. Frame of Mind Coaching™ offers deep, intimate and transformational coaching for driven executives, leaders and business owners who aren’t scared to overcome obstacles and reach new heights. 

A Frame of Mind Coaching™ relationship involves a powerful connection between you and a personalized coach that focuses on cultivating emotional resilience, goal acquisition and more through effective thought management. By providing a framework to assess and tackle your challenges, you’ll be better prepared to achieve your goals despite setbacks and turbulent situations.  

Curious about how a coaching relationship like this works? Contact us for more.