Resilience – A Key Leadership Trait

It’s no secret the pace of doing business today is hectic. As leaders in the fitness industry, we are also facing the additional demands of keeping pace with an industry that has experienced large-scale disruption, exponential levels of growth and increasing consumer demands.

Therefore, today more than ever, leaders need to be able to navigate the changing environment and deliver results for their teams and businesses. That requires resilience, defined by Merriam-Webster as, “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.”

Resilience is a key leadership quality. A resilient leader has the ability to adapt to change, recover from disappointments and continue to move forward, despite setbacks and when faced with adversity.

The ability to be a resilient leader is directly correlated to the ability to manage your individual levels of stress. Without adequate self-awareness and self-care, poor work-life balance can occur, with the risk of developing burn out.

As a leader, your behavior and reactions are continually being observed and modelled by your team. It is often said the true strength of a leader is how they exhibit emotional strength and maintain a positive outlook during challenging times. During difficult periods of change and transition, a leader who demonstrates resilience in turn provides strength for the team.

A resilient leader understands the importance of compassion, to oneself and others, when cultivating a resilient mindset. In many instances, a leader who is resilient is able to draw on their own personal hardship experience to share with their team. In turn, this ability to be relatable helps to build trust and cultivate a positive workplace culture.

Ultimately, a resilient leader will look for the learnings from experiencing adversity and view it as a personal growth opportunity.

Leadership expert John Maxwell sums it up perfectly: “Adversity is a better teacher than success, if we want to learn from adversity.”

Kristen Green is the executive general manager at AquaFit in Australia.