Resilience is one of those concepts that gets tossed around a lot in leadership circles. Too often, it’s boiled down to toughness, grit, or the ability to “power through.” True resilience, however, is NOT about grinding ourselves into the ground. Instead, it’s about adaptability, responsiveness, and sustainability.
As both a coach and a former engineer, I can’t help but see the parallels between how we talk about resilience in leadership and how it’s defined in material science.
"It’s just easier if I do it myself."
This is a common refrain that comes up with my coaching clients, whether I’m working with an overwhelmed parent, a startup founder, or a C-suite leader. Most of us don’t think of ourselves as micromanagers or needing control. We just care and want things done well. In many cases, we’ve been burned before. Perhaps we have a pile of evidence that we can’t or shouldn’t rely on others. How often have we heard the tired cliché (often attributed to Napoléon Bonaparte*): “If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.”
