Why “Bouncing Back” Isn’t Enough: Building True Resilience at Work ft. Russell Harvey (The Resilience Coach)

What better guest for The Resilience Report than The Resilience Coach himself? Russell Harvey joins us for a timely conversation that gets to the heart of what it really means to be resilient in today’s complex world.

With over two decades of experience in leadership development and organizational change, Russell has supported more than 78,000 people in building resilience that goes far beyond “bouncing back.” His practical, human-centered approach is helping leaders and teams not just survive—but thrive—through change.

In this episode, we unpack what resilience really means in today’s complex, fast-moving world. Russell shares why “just pushing through” is a myth that needs rewriting, how leaders can spot burnout and delegate to their team’s strengths, and why resilience needs to be proactive—not reactive. We also explore the nuances of resilience in public vs. private sector settings, the role of storytelling in long-term sustainability work, and how remote or hybrid environments are shaping team dynamics.

Whether you're leading others, navigating uncertainty, or just feeling stretched thin, this conversation offers fresh thinking and tangible tools to help you spring forward with learning—and lead with intention.

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[Host: Lauren Scott] Welcome back to another episode of The Resilience Report. Over the past couple of years of the show, we've had leaders from all different industries, really sharing how they've been resilient in their respective industries, especially as they're trying to disrupt them with more sustainable solutions.

And at the same time, I think it's really important that we take from time to time a moment, just to kind of step back and understand the fundamentals of what it means to be resilient. And I can't think of a better guest than who we have on today. So with that welcome to the show, Russell.

[Guest: Russell Harvey] Thank you very much, Lauren. I shall try my absolute best about all you know. I'm in this space of all the time talking about the word resilience. And occasionally I just do suddenly stop and go. What does it mean? I'm talking about it all the time. What does it mean? So let's utilize today to refresh myself around all of that.

Well, I'd actually love to start there. I mean, you refer to yourself as the Resilience Coach again, which I think is the perfect time to chat with you. How do you think about resilience? Is there a definition that you lean into in your work?

Yeah, there is. And it comes from just lots of years of research and thinking about this and practical application. So, I specifically define resilience as springing forward with learning. That's how I would like people to really think about this resiliency word.

Couple of reasons for that. I'm just personally not a fan of the term bounce back essentially, because what it evokes for me is that a lot of people believe that they are only being resilient when they face into a challenging event, they'll face into it with whatever levels of resilience they have at that moment in time. And then I go right. I've faced into that. I'll now bounce back. Go back to how I was beforehand. It's a bit of a subconscious, you know, language and word and instruction. And I'm there going. Okay, you can't go back.

We can only move forward in life. So the resilient individual springs forward with learning into a better place. So it's very much about proactive resilience. Now, we absolutely will need to recover from life's events. So the resiliency is absolutely about something's happened, and I need to recover from an adverse event: doesn't always have to be negative, adverse. It can be something that was just like, oh, that was a very, very special, nice surprise. However, I'm having to recover from it.

So it doesn't always have to be negative when it's the word adverse. And then and it's with learning. So how you role model that as an individual is that you have to make a choice from all of life's events to pause. And in those pauses: so listening to a podcast is a pause. Having a chat with a mate is a pause. Going for a walk is a pause. Great conversation with your team is a pause, and in those pauses ask yourself 3 questions.

• What have I been doing behaviorally recently? That has served me well.
• What have I been doing behaviorally recently? That has not been serving me. 
• How can I do more of the answers to the 1st question? 

So those reflections are against this thing called the “resilience wheel”, which I'm sure we may talk about shortly, but springing forward with learning is how I would like everybody to think about this word resilience.

You mentioned at the top that it feels like resiliency right now is needed more than ever. But you clearly have a deep career over the past couple of decades in this space? Was it in facing a need to be resilient that initially made you want to look into this? Or were you just more curious about human nature? What did that look like to get started.

So The Resilience Coach is 10 years old next month, Lauren, in July. And so my whole career hasbeen in sort of learning, development and human behavior.

And in that career I've been made redundant 6 times.

and it was on. It was on the 6th that it felt right for me to finally go solo essentially, and set up my own business, and also at that time my last permanent role was at an organization called the Co-OP group. So there are cooperatives all around the world. And I was in the Uk at the Karp group. And not long after I joined them a number of years ago, about 15-16 years ago.

Literally the world fell on everybody's heads. There was a significant, enormous change within the business, and my clients, which were part of this sort of leadership group, came to me literally with their head in the hands and went, what do we do?

And I'd already been looking at this word resilience because it had been coming up lots.

And also this anachronym of VUCA. Which some people are and aren't familiar with, and I'm just checking on your facial expression and it or not. So I'll clarify that.

And then I just went. Look, all of our solutions about what do we do? How do we face into there are around what this word resilience truly means, and this an acronym called VUCA. And so that that's the short version. So it's been. It's, you know, about 18 years. Unfortunately, in the last few years as well, my wife has been incredibly unwell. So that has added to me having to think about this word resilience, and what it means to me personally. She's on the road to recovery thankfully, but that there were some extra circumstances when I just was like, Hmm, okay. So this is this situation is happening to us both. So you know, it's like it's lived experience as well.

And in looking at resilience, do you feel like there is that there are any myths out there that need debunking right at the top of this recording.

Yeah. So I don't want us to think about it as just keeping going regardless. Okay? So we we it was. And it's really challenging to those individuals that believe that they are only solely being resilient by just keeping going in difficult circumstances.

They're the ones that it's trying to have a conversation with those ones to go, actually, there can be a better way. You know. You don't necessarily have to be on this hamster wheel. You don't have to feel as though you are just hanging on, just surviving just about coping, because when the individual role models this pause and these reflections, and engaging with their resilience wheel. Then they get themselves into this thriving space. So I wanted to sort of shift away that we people believe in that there are only being resilient when surviving and coping. Sometimes we have to do that.

But the resilient individual engages with building and growing and nurturing their personal resilience, so that actually, more often they can be thriving, even though we are in full on difficult, challenging circumstances, you can actually legitimately turn and go. Yeah, there's a huge amount of challenge going on. And I'm good.

That's it. Right?

Well, to that end I would actually like to to read this to you. I've been hearing this a lot in different. I guess all the different podcasts and don't want to call it necessarily self-help. But more, the personal development space.

It's this expression that “hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times, good times, create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”

How does that play into the concept of resilience? And do you think that that's a myth in and of itself? Or do you think there's some footing there?

No, my gut reaction to it is, I'm not sure I don't think there's any footing in it. You know, essentially, is my gut reaction to it.

And it's, it's, you know, going to sound like a broken record. But it's just we need to learn from life's experiences. We need to learn from actually what's the type of human that we want to be. Now, some individuals appear to be learning that the type of human they want to be. I would struggle with their choices. You know, I think actually, I'm learning that this is the type of human I want to be. And they're out there and about, and we can see them around. So you know, you have an opportunity to learn about what your value system is and what's important to you. Essentially and whether we are strong or weak, or hard or soft, I'm not entirely sure if hard or soft, is the right language. I talk about soft skills which people are often find the hardest to do. So. Maybe, you know, I've been a, you know, a hypocrite there. And I also take a strengths based approach.

So I'd really talk about this word energy. So it's actually understanding that there are natural things that we are energized by. You know, people potentially in North America will understand strength finder. And in the Uk use strength scope. And then it's actually when people say, Oh, you know, “this is a weakness of mine”. I go, “Well, let's have a quick reframe on that about. It's probably about you have very little energy for it.”

Doesn't mean that you can't do it. But actually, if we ask you to do it, you're just like. Ugh! Have I got to? And so yeah, that's it's interesting language. But gut reaction to that: I'm going with no.

We've had guests from all different industries, whether it's sustainable aviation, fuel to energy, storage to fashion. If you're thinking about all of these different sectors which you've certainly worked with over the past decade. Do you see common themes coming up when it when it comes to resilience? Or does it really sometimes have a more sector, specific flavor?

So some differentiators are in public sector and private sector, and the people appreciate that you're in, you know, Canada. However those in the US, might be experiencing some of the public state things, or all the funding that's being cut.

Essentially so in the United Kingdom. For a long period of time we've had this word “austerity” essentially, which was about actually cuts to public services. And we've had, for since I can remember, essentially, we've had varying messages towards the public sector. So councils and our National Health Service and other things like that of like do more with less. Keep stretching it. Keep being efficient, you know, and it is. And you know we had the pandemic as well, and then on the back of the pandemic, still getting the message of like, there isn't a great deal of money. 

So when I go to the public sector that creates over decades a feeling of literally, there's no more efficiency we can do, or it has driven a suite of behaviors of like. Please stop telling us to do more with less. We've been doing that for decades, you know. We've been looking in drawers everywhere for decades to go. Actually, how can we get slightly better at this? And where can we save some money? And you know it has.

It has got to the stage where any benefits around saying that, in my humble opinion, have gone by the wayside. Essentially so, the public sector is like stretched and strained and overwhelmed. And there are incredible people working really hard, trying to do the impossible, and some of them have got to the stage of like. Do you know what? Stop asking us to do? The impossible. Because it's getting a bit boring, you know.

And so the only compression is to private sector. It often falls into the trap of, because in private sector we can hire and fire slightly more easily, then the negative of the private sector is that they try and squeeze too much out of their people and like a sausage machine. Keep promising the earth of like we'll look after you. But then, actually, when it comes to it, people are going. Actually, you're just trying to just get me to work really hard and squeeze as much out of me as you can. 

And then the challenge for myself in my business is the volume of times. I get an inquiry from clients about actually okay. So we're having a team day, and we've got. And we're going to do spend a day on updates and kpis and money. And it's actually, you know, people are a bit tired. So can you come and do like 10 min on resilience and fixers, you know. And I'm like, well, I could, but it's usually I don't. I absolutely get frustrated when resilience becomes toxic. You just need to be resilient, or you just need to be positive. That's not how resilience is. For me, it is actually a resilient organization, genuinely creates the circumstances for human performance. That's a resilient organization and without doing anybody out of a job, a resilient organization doesn't need a well-being strategy. Well-being is really important. Okay, Caveat. But the principle is, actually, if you've got a resilient organization, people are at their best, they're playing to their strengths. They're engaged, they're performing. We understand what the environment we need to create for that. Ergo, why would we do an additional well-being strategy? Because our approach to resiliency is achieving it.

Such an interesting nuance between some of the resilience challenges from the public and private sector. I'm wondering if you've seen any nuances when it comes to people working in values-based work? 

Prior to working in the energy space, I was deeply involved, for example, in more of the nonprofit sector where you have people really working for causes that they believe in. And I remember hearing a lot about compassion fatigue at the time. Yhat people were giving 120% because they really believed in it. However, they weren't necessarily creating or given the space to be resilient in that. So have you faced that over your career?

Yeah, it is absolutely so, you know, resilient one of the I talked about the resilience wheel so 7 aspects to it, and without self promotion. It's on the website. Essentially. If anybody asks me, how do you build your resilience, Russell, it's like play with your wheel. Essentially. And so one of the aspects of reels is, people have a purpose.

Okay? So a resilient individual, factually, logically, has a purpose essentially and there's a number of different ways in which you can tease it out. Those that are then in the sectors that we're talking about, you know, sustainability, voluntary sector, 3rd sector: will fall into the trap that there are fewer rewards for it, essentially. So it's not. 

We're not motivated by money as human beings, we might think we are. We need money to live. Generally speaking, we are not motivated by money, but we seem to fall in the trap in the 3rd sector and sustainability of like, we can get all these kind-hearted people to just do all these things and not really reward them in any way, shape or form. And at some point you're going to get fed up with that and go. Actually, why am I doing this? You know, because I'm trying to make the world a better place. But we seem to be put investing the finances in continuing to do those things that potentially aren't making the world a better place, and that is a challenge for everybody in that sector to look at all of that and go. What decision am I going to make personally about? I'm going to keep going. With this understanding, the circumstances or not.

And another lovely sentence that I can say is that a resilient individual is good at accepting with good grace those things that you know they're going. I don't like this, or this has happened, or this is unfair. Another lovely sentence I can say is that resilient individuals cognitively know well and accept that life isn't fair, but it doesn't mean that they are suddenly upset or just depressed in inverted commas. As a consequence of it. They accept that with good grace, and then move forward with learning, and, you know, are energized and thriving because they've found a way through it essentially. But if there's being a chipping away at you for a long period of time, then actually, you know all of that ability to have this inner core of resilience gets chipped away at.

Well, I'd love to double click into that in terms of kind of that long term versus short term. When we think about resiliency, I know you also shape it in terms of reactive and proactive resilience. Can you share for our listeners what that might look like in their day to day?

The resilient individual, the leader, and the resilient team, they make the choice. They make the cognitive choice to engage with their resilience wheel on a regular basis daily, weekly, monthly, because they understand the benefit to them. So you know certain aspects. They're buzzwords to start with Lauren. But you know, when you play around. So you know, heart resilience is attitude. You've got purpose, confidence, adaptability, support network meaning, which is our internal storytelling and energy which is playing to our strengths.

When an individual chooses to grow, nurture, play around with their resilience wheel, then they get themselves into this thrive space, more often essentially so. When I talk about resilience, my intention is not to add to anybody's feeling of overwhelm or to their feeling of like a mental to do list, you know. And that is a challenge in this space. If somebody's actually their resilience levels are depleted and they present in a particular way, and you sort of go. Okay. So there's some things that you can do about this. But it means there are some things that you're going to have to do, and at this moment, in time the idea of doing anything is, no, thank you.

I don't want to do anything, you know. But then the resilient individual, or the person that wants to be more resilient, understands the value of benefit to them and their lives of making the choice to play around with their resilience, wheel and grow it and nurture it, and as a consequence, how they view life, the things that they choose to do, how aligned they feel how much they feel as though they've got a command of their environments. They've got influence over the things that they can, that all shifts into a better place. So you have to entice the individual to go. You may be here now, and here is a world where it could be different. What's going to be your 1st step, because you know, that's where you want to get to. 

And I love the idea, too, of thinking longer term is because a lot of listeners are working directly in the sustainability space. And I think what is really interesting, and in contrast to perhaps a lot of the models where it is immediate results, immediate goals and targets. A lot of us working in the sustainability space are working on reducing emissions by 2040, or these super long-term goals, or some people might even be retired by the time they actually come to fruition.

How can you maintain that spirit and that energy to your point when you are trying to think of very, very, very long term goals before somebody says to you, “Hey, you did it”.

So potentially, it's different for everybody. Potentially, it's in the purpose. Potentially, it's in actually them understanding that day by day they're playing to their strengths. So when day by day, you are harnessing your own strengths, it builds natural resilience and natural confidence.

I'm wondering as well. I'm thinking there's a individual called David Nour. So storytelling. So where I'm going with this there were 3 types of stories that is good for leaders to do so. There are continuity stories, and there are, imagine the future stories. So they're novelty stories. And there are transition stories.

So this may be useful for some people. So your continuity stories are about your grounding and your value system about why we're doing this in the 1st place, you know. Who are we? Why are we here? Connectivity, head, heart, and gut, you know, and for others, head, heart, gut, and earth. I would suspect that is part of it as well. So that gives you a grounding and a bedrock, you know, by actually, why am I doing this? Why are we here? Okay? Because there's a long term goal. Or actually, I'm here right now to connect with these humans and society in a particular way. So your continuity stories. Then there's the novelty stories of “imagine a world where” you know or imagine we've got these circumstances where and it's like, actually, you know what I've imagined a future when it's different and better, and that is compelling enough for me.

And then potentially, with the longer term goals, it'll be in the transition stories, and your transition stories are opportunities to maintain and nurture and grow your resilience and celebrate success, and understand the path that you are traveling, and where you've come from, and where you're going to, and where you're at and what the next bit is, and how much you've achieved.

I do think storytelling is a big part of it, and I know that's also part of your work as well. Do you think that's one of the tools, and or maybe there are others, too, when we're navigating really uncertain times, and I don't know if there was honestly, ever a time where it was certain. But it really does feel like from day to day. Even if you just look at stock markets. It looks like every day is a new day, especially over the past couple of years.

Are there ways for our listeners, who are often business leaders, or at least leaders within their teams to think about creating a space of resilience and stability even during a time of uncertainty.

Well, yeah, because it's it's making this decision and choice that you're going to engage with your wheel in some way, shape or form, that you find interesting, enjoyable on a regular basis. Now that's and it's like whatever's going to float somebody's boat, you know. It's daily playing around the wheel will work for some. They actually do. You know what? Every couple of weeks I'm going to play around with it. So yeah, the main thing with actually being a coach is the most consistent piece of feedback I get from all clients is, do you know the types of conversations I have with you, Russell are just different to any other conversation I have, because I pause and I reflect, and I think, and we and you know so many clients go. We don't do that often enough, do we? And I'm sitting there going. No, we don't. How can you do it? Well and better so, and you've got to see the value and the benefit in it, and just going back to that uncertain times.

That's where the VUCA piece comes in. It's a model that's been around since the 19 nineties. Some people hate it. Some people like it. Some people have never heard of it.

So I'm going to say, 8 buzzwords now. 

I like this VUCA thing is that we? I walk into lots of rooms with people lots of times and go. So change is constant, and people nod their heads. And I go right. We now need to unpick that, you know, rather than just nod and move along. So the world we live in is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. To face into it, we need: vision, understanding, clarity and agility.

Okay, and it's just like when you unpick each of those 8 words, leaders and individuals sort of go “Oh, now I get to understand an awful lot better”. Why change is constant. It's happening all of the time, everywhere. And in some way, shape or form. It's impacting me. And this is how I'm going to face into it. And this is what I'm going to understand and make decisions and choices about where I go, what I look at or what I ignore, because it's legitimate to ignore it.

Yeah. So that that's why I like the VUCA piece. And when you look at the capabilities and skills behind it, they all link to the resiliency piece as well.

Which makes me wonder a little bit, too. Do you think that it is a situation right now where this next generation coming in is not feeling as resilient? Is this something that we've seen every single generation? And it just happens to be that there's greater access to a shared sentiment on social media? Or do you really think that maybe there is a drying up of resiliency, or just kind of a giving up in terms of this I keep on seeing this thing online of like “this is my 5th unprecedented event since January first”, or something like that. What does that look like, do you think, as we're looking at this next generation coming in.

It's really interesting. Because, yeah, this word, unprecedented got used literally every single day hour of every day throughout the pandemic. So people will take words, and they will play around with them. So it's really interesting, Lauren. So the short answer is, I'm not sure but this is just me personally, in addition to some research that I'll refer to.

For a long time people have sort of said, Oh, each new generation is, you know, less resilient than one before, but the latest research on it is like, you know, every single generation just has the same level of challenges as others, they just think that they haven't.

But that's not to dismiss absolutely those generations that are coming through now that are struggling. I think one of the things that has been an extra layer of impact is the lack of access into education, so homeschooling for a whole nation. So homeschooling is, you know, absolutely fine if you choose to do it. But if a whole nation is not accessing its education system as well, all that's interrupted, because when you go to school, you create your social cohesion, you, you create your identity, you, you create your understanding about how the world works, what you're interested in, what you're not interested in. So having that taken away. So one of the dimensions of being resilient is your support network. So, you know. Yes, this a support network got potentially taken away for a period of time in the whole education system, globally. For some it got replaced with whatever familiar environments that they were in, and they may have been able to supplement it, you know well enough, but if you take it for a whole generation of people that in my personal opinion, I think there's an extra layer of challenge there.

And it also seems to be the case, I think, with social media is that I have. So I you know I went to university, and literally it was never. I was never bothered about the clothes that I wore. Okay, I literally had a choice all day every day to go buy a new pair of jeans or go to the pub, you know, and the pub won.

I definitely made those decisions over the years, too. 

And I live in Leeds, which is a student area. And so what I have noticed is that the individuals, you know, coming through this generation. They physically, they look amazing.

You know the clothes that they wear and the bodies that they've got. And I mean this with all due respect. You look at them. And you just go. Wow, okay, you are putting effort into know being healthy and going to the gym and exercising and doing these types of things. You know my student days, and there was nobody doing that.

However, at the same time that generation is reporting that their mental health is very, very low. But we also have this information of like good physical health is also good for your mental health and they seem to be bucking the trend around that.

And I don't have an answer to it. I'm just going, these are some things that I'm noticing. It's like, Yeah, you look amazing. But you are telling us actually mentally, yeah, it's not as good as it could be. And I do believe the only thing around the social media piece is that it exacerbates everything. I see the great, and it exacerbates the not so great.

And I wonder if there's a factor, too, in terms of your touching on it. During the pandemic there was fully remote. Now we're seeing in back in the business world we're seeing a little bit of a hybrid. A lot of people stayed remote. There's now a push to go back to the office.

Do you feel that this setup has any impact in terms of resilience, because it does anecdotally feel that when we get together it can feel really good to maybe strengthen some of the social bonds that we're talking about having eye contact and not being looking at a screen all day. At the same time, I know that there's also a maybe more of a balance that employees were able to achieve in having at least a hybrid where you could do your laundry and not have to do everything on Saturday and Sunday. So what does that look like in terms of the research, with regards to resilience.

Absolutely. There's a few things here so overarching sort of so big picture wise. What is really good for organizations to do is to really think about taking an outcomes approach.

Okay? So I mean by that is that you know, businesses organizations. You know, I've got one hand waving my fingers at this moment time to go like there's kpis and targets and stuff and outcomes and things that need doing. And you've got your humans. Okay, you need to take a pause and a step back to go. Actually, just let's understand what makes these humans tick, what energizes them, what enthuses them, what floats their boat, and let's match up the things that they're doing much better to those 2 aspects. 

When an organization could take a step back and go. Do you know what that is? The strategic approach we're going to take to it and as a consequence, actually, our job descriptions and roles and responsibilities follow on the back of that rather than going. I'll write a job description.

And, you know, try and get something to fit. It is to go. All this stuff needs doing. And these are the type of people that we need. And the additional research shows in the hybrid world is that one of the, you know, 6 things that leaders need to be able to do under their gift of the team that reports into them is that when a suite of human beings think about their team, and they feel socially connected to it, that's 1 of the ways in which you enable a resilient team. So this isn't about. You have to, you know, create parties for people to get together. And you know, eat and drink. That's not what it means. It means, actually, we've absolutely got a team purpose. We've really understood. Actually, when these humans come together, we really understand. Who are they? They understand each other where they're coming from, what makes them tick their strengths, their skills, their capabilities. How we can get the best out of each other. We respect each other essentially, understand the value that each other brings and the work that we've got to do. And actually, each time, then, when I mentally think about my team, I feel a sense of connection to it: head, heart, and gut.

It is more difficult to do that in a hybrid world. But then the only thing that you can do is keep talking to your team and going right. All this stuff needs doing. And you've got all these strengths and skills we need to come together and decide, when are we going to do this face to face? And when are we going to do this virtually.

If we only have a virtual team because of globally that's where we're at. We have to go right. What are our watch outs around this. What do we really need to do around it?

And the additional bit in here not to put any pressure on line managers. But the last 2 World happiness reports. There was an interesting bit of information in there that really piqued my interest, which was, when we ask anybody, “how are you” who has a job, who is in work asking, How are you? A significant proportion of their ability to answer that question positively, in a good sense. Roughly, 70% of it is down to their relationship with their line manager.

And every time I say that I said it yesterday in a room full of people, and they all did their variation of like “Hmm.”

We're all thinking of our respective teams, absolutely.

So just to be clear, a line manager is not responsible for somebody else's happiness. That's not what it means. It's just a case of whatever relationship you've got, it has a significant impact on your ability to answer well, the question of how are you.

And as managers are listening to this, I definitely heard you earlier saying that individually we need to make sure that we're kind of filling our cup, addressing it within the wheel that you were sharing. If we are a leader and we have employees who, we can see are having a hard time, maybe making the space. But they're type A. They want to continue to push through to your point. If they're just maybe focused on bouncing back, but not necessarily forward. 

Do you have any tips for those line managers who are trying to encourage their teams to take the time to fill their cup and to realize, even from a pure productivity level, it could be very selfish from the leader. But we realize that our employees need to also be taking that time.

Yeah. So it is ultimately coaching skills. It's openness and curiosity. And but what really is part of coaching skills is feedback.

So it's always on somebody's behaviors. So couple of assumptions on my behalf that the line manager really understands that individual's strengths. You know their energy levels around the, you know, things that they enjoy doing, that they're enthused by, because we can do an energy in overdrive. We can do too much.

So it's about having the coaching conversation which is about asking the right questions. So the individual in front of you has their own light bulb moment they have their own realised. So it's it's like, and I know, really, simplistically. Don't tell the individual that they're working too hard. Okay, you need to find a way to ask a number of curious questions so that the individual goes “I'm working too hard”. I'm burning out. I need to do something about this, because that's enabling an individual to perform at their best.

So my company's part of something called the Oxford Review, which looks at all research that exists around sort of human behavior and development. So this is where this next bit of research comes from. So they were doing a piece of research around. You know, what's the best leadership style. And they sort of 1st thing was they looked on the Internet to go. How many leadership styles? And I think they got to 350 and went Ok.

And I'm really paraphrasing some fabulous research here, so just bear with us, but simplistically, what they initially noticed that transformational leadership is mentioned the most. But the evidence shows it has the least impact upon outcomes. Okay? And then a leadership that was mentioned, I think, in the top 5, or maybe 3rd was servant leadership.

And that has the best impact upon outcomes. So when, as a so, you're not there to serve your people in servant leadership because there's some equity to it, it's not about. But you are there to go. How do I support you to be at your best? So if you're noticing that a member of staff is burnt out doing too much type A. It's like, I'm not serving you as your leader. If I let that carry on.

If I let you burn out, then actually, I'm not allowing you to be at your best, so I have a responsibility on my shoulders to go right. We need to find ways for you to harness the best of you, understand what to watch out for, and if we to support you to identify your own strategies when you recognize it. And then when if you call me up and say, actually, boss, I've really, I realized I might just be, I've gone into that trap again.

I just need to do something different. The boss goes great, fine. Yeah, I understand. You know I support you to do the different thing, so that you can, you know, recoup, restore yourself, re-energize, you know, and come back and be at your best essentially.

And then, on the other side, in terms of recruiting, I would love to look at the area we're talking about before about the soft skills are actually the hardest skills which, I have never heard somebody say it that way. But you're absolutely right. I'm thinking, end of your evaluations. That always is the hardest part to to make any adjustments.

As our listeners, who are leaders are thinking about hiring, are there any soft skills that they should be looking for. That might suggest that it could be a team member that could prove to be very resilient in and of themselves, but also bring a dynamic to the team that would allow the team to be resilient.

Great question. I'm just thinking so. How I would answer it is that look at the resilience wheel and ask you questions about that person's wheel.

And you know, with competency-based interviews we get asked the question that tell me about a time when okay? So it's like, Tell me about a time when you really understood what your purpose was. Tell me about a time when you really managed to understand, when you were not feeling confident, and what you did about it.

Tell me about a time when you know you understood actually that you weren't adapting well to a situation and what you did about it. Tell me what really energizes you. Tell me what really floats your boat? Okay?

And so then you will have an individual that is demonstrating overall, you know, levels of understanding around what it means to be resilient, even though we've not even utilized the word. And if you invite that team member into your team. Then, you know, they they are going to be able to role model it without actually potentially understanding that they are role modeling it. 

Definitely a tip we can all take back right away, I'm sure. At this point our listeners are thinking about. Well, what can I start today to be a more resilient leader. Are there any, maybe one or 2 tips that they can try and test out over the coming week?

So let's go back to delegating brilliantly. Okay. So when leaders are feeling overwhelmed. I say, actually, there's only 3 things you're responsible for as a leader. So we're only going to talk about 3, but one tip to take away Lauren.

So I say, you're only responsible for 3 things, delegating brilliantly to your people's strengths, removing the blockages to them performing, and what I mean by that is, when you can no longer coach the individual to sort their own situation out, a point comes with legitimately. It's your role to go. Actually, this bit. The system's broken or our organization's process at my more senior level. It's my responsibility to do something about this and talk to my peers. And the 3rd thing that you're responsible for as a leader is to build and grow and nurture a resilient team. 

But to start with, if it's 1 thing, just go back to all of your conversation. You know, conversations with your individuals that you've had about. Actually, how well am I delegating to this individual strengths? Because when an individual plays to their strengths, it builds natural resilience and natural confidence.

So it's just reflect. So you do that by asking, you know one or 2 questions of your individuals to just sort of go. Just tell me what you've been working on recently.

and I'm going to make it simple right now. But you hope that they'll say, well, last week I was working on this, and this was happening, and I was doing this, and you go. And then the next day, you know, the next day I was working on this, and it wasn't so enjoyable.

You've got a clue there. Okay, to go right. Tell me more about that 1st answer. What's going on there. How do we get you to do more of that? And then what strategies can we put in place to sort of really manage well, your second answer, and that's delegating brilliantly. And because when they give more of those answers of this is what I'm working on. It builds natural resilience and natural confidence.

That's brilliant, and I'm sure at this point our listeners are going to want to learn more because I could  personally could ask you so many more questions. If they do want to check out your work, where would you recommend they go?

Yeah, it's literally the website. So it's www.theresiliencecoach.co.uk. I'm on Linkedin. I'm there so feel free to connect with us. Just send us a message as well. Don't just say as a random connection. Just go. I heard you up with Lauren. That's why I'm connecting because I get a lot of requests, and sometimes I'm going. I don't understand. So yes, please connect with us, message us and ask us a question, and happy to have a conversation. But it's all on the website. 

There's my own podcast on there, with all the different aspects of the resilience wheel. As an episode, there's 160-170 blogs on there. The latest series of blogs, literally just now is about how a resilient team needs to think about doing artificial intelligence, human augmentation.That's the next series. It's like, okay. So if you're going to invite AI into your team, is it going to add to or take away from your resilience.

Well, thank you so much. I do want to wrap up this episode as we do with every episode, and I can't think of a better person to answer this question, which is, what do you think it will take for businesses and leaders to be resilient, going forward.

Engage with their resilience wheel. It's just literally it's not a 1. Size fits all. So engage with your resilience wheel. Do it because it applies to you personally, it applies to you as a leader. It applies to a team, and it applies organizationally. So go play around with your wheel.

Thank you so much, Russell. I really appreciate you sharing all of your knowledge today. But then also just sharing so much about resilience in general. I think this is what we all need right now. So thank you very much.

My absolute pleasure. Thank you for asking me.