Building confidence and resilience within yourself and your team
Being confident and resilient in leadership is often paired with the success of building fantastic teams and generating results within organisations. Research noted by the Harvard Business School recognises that resilient leaders are “viewed as being more effective by their managers, peers and direct reports”, emphasising the importance of these characteristics within organisations.
They also bring other benefits, such as improving the overall wellbeing within a workplace by reducing stress, improving job satisfaction for colleagues, assisting with improving team working skills and increasing morale by enhancing a positive outlook within a working environment.
However, despite all of these benefits I have met many leaders who struggle building confidence and resilience within their leadership and with their teams, particularly in situations of significant adversity or continuous high pressure.
Discovering ways to build these characteristics within yourself and your team can be a good place to begin - read on to delve into my suggestions.
Building your own confidence and resilience
To build your own confidence and resilience as a leader, here are some suggestions to consider:
1. Accept situations as they are.
Being a confident and resilient leader means you are able to face tough situations and find solutions to these. By adopting an accepting outlook, you can decrease stress which then results in you having more mental and emotional energy to lead effectively.
2. Understand your values and beliefs.
Our own values and beliefs act as an inner resource to draw upon, in order to be our best. They act as a guide for us to understand whether our actions are correct. Understanding your own values and beliefs can allow you to navigate tough situations with a core purpose in your decision making.
3. Embrace flexibility
Be aware of constant changing environments and embrace the flexibility needed to deal with this. Observing challenges as opportunities rather than threats can encourage you to realise your personal potential, as well as helping you to have an open mindset. With an open mindset, you can build confidence and resilience.
4. Prioritise self care
Understanding your own limits and taking care of yourself helps you to make reasonable decisions and prevents you from burning out. Prioritising self care, whether this be through delegating tasks, making time for physical exercise or supporting your emotions, can increase your confidence and resilience as a leader.
5. Reflect on your achievements and accomplishments
To increase your confidence and resilience, it can be beneficial to understand your achievements and accomplishments, reflecting on patterns within your behaviour. Taking the time to understand who you are, what you’ve done and how you feel - gives you the ability to make educated decisions.
Building your teams’ confidence and resilience
The Harvard Business Review research that we mentioned earlier, demonstrates how building a confident and resilient team can help generate results within organisations. In order to build a team which shows strength in these characteristics, leaders can consider placing emphasis on the following:
1. Creating a culture of care and connection
Creating a culture of care and connection is important when building a confident and resilient team. It is those teams who feel safe to share their opinions and feelings with their team, who overcome difficult situations effectively.
2. Encouraging a growth mindset
Creating a team environment where colleagues can develop their abilities through hard work and reflection, can empower your team to view challenges as opportunities. Helping them to develop greater confidence and resilience within their work and grow as individuals.
3. Prioritising self care and well-being
As leaders, it is important to demonstrate the importance of self care and well being for yourself and your teams. Encourage your team to practise self care and remind them of the importance of boundaries for long term success.
4. Establish a shared purpose
Creating an environment where colleagues have a shared sense of purpose, values and beliefs can assist with confidence and resilience. Taking time to reflect on each individual's contributions to a common purpose, can increase confidence and resilience and shared belief in each other.
5. Encourage collaboration and teamwork
It is teams who collaborate and work together effectively that handle challenges and overcome setbacks successfully. Within your working environment, encourage colleagues to share knowledge, skills and resources to tackle problems collectively.
Get in touch
If you’re not sure where to start, get in touch today for a chat. As a Leadership Partner, I’ll partner with you and your Executive Team to develop confidence and resilience through building a culture of care and connection. Please, do get in touch for a conversation to explore opportunities.
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