RESOURCE CENTER

The Leader’s Guide to Building Resilient Teams

Empower your people to navigate whatever comes their way.

TIME TO READ: 7 MINUTES

Thrive Global

This guide was produced in partnership with Thrive Global as part of our Wellness Playbook. Learn to better manage your days (and nights) with the insights and actionable tips in this guide.

As a leader in uncertain times, you can model beliefs and behaviors that empower others to minimize stress, avoid burnout, and be their best selves personally and professionally. Resilience enables us to succeed in key ways, strengthening our ability to:

Manage stress
Navigate challenges
Prioritize resting and recharging
Cultivate purpose and perspective in challenging times
Know when to reach out for support

It starts with acknowledging the challenges people are facing right now. Many employees have been working from home for months. Many have experienced health problems, financial difficulties, isolation, and an unrelenting sense of burnout. Working parents now have the added uncertainty of a new school year. However we have adjusted and adapted, no one is sure what the next few weeks and months will look like.

All this has taken a toll on our mental health. More than 40% of adults experienced anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges during the pandemic. In addition to the toll on individuals, these challenges also diminish organizational resilience: For example, Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom predicts productivity drops within companies by 5–10%.

Resilience is the ability to adjust and recover in times of crisis and uncertainty, like the ones we’re going through now. Science tells us resilience is a muscle we can build — and when we do, we can not only bounce back, but emerge stronger.

This guide includes resilience-building Microsteps for you and your team from Thrive Global, the behavior-change technology company founded by Arianna Huffington. Microsteps are small, science-backed actions we can start taking immediately to build habits that can be transformative.

Empower your team to strengthen their resilience by taking a quick wellbeing assessment and using these Microsteps.

Take This Quick Quiz to Assess Your Wellbeing and Resilience:

Answer 12 simple questions to get insights about where you’re thriving and where you're not.

Take the Quiz

Thrive Global - This two minute resilience assessment will help you to see where you're thriving and where you could use a boost. Upon completion, you'll receive an overall Thrive Score, as well as unique scores for two key pathways: Stress Management and Resilience.

Tip #1: Reset your relationship with your team.

If ever there was a moment demanding a new leadership playbook, this is it.

People are craving strong leadership and clear communication. Many are struggling with loneliness and isolation, and according to Salesforce research over one third of employees say they feel less connected to their colleagues while working remotely. Employees overwhelmingly feel that employers need to be doing more to support them in the ways that matter most.

So much of the larger conversation around returning to work is focused on physical safety and how technology can enable us to be productive in the new normal. These are important, but what’s often lost is a discussion of people’s mental and emotional state. Productivity is not just about technology. It’s also about people. And right now, many people are feeling stressed more than ever.

For managers, this presents an opportunity. Now more than ever, we need to connect with people in a personal way. Practice these Microsteps to reset your relationship with members of your team and, in turn, create a culture where people feel valued for who they are — not just what they do.

Microsteps

Check in with each member of your team about their workload. When everyone is working remotely, it’s much harder to detect the signs of burnout. Ask your direct reports to let you know when they’re overloaded — and also to raise a hand when they have bandwidth to help.

Schedule a weekly update with your team, even if you don’t have news to share. In times of uncertainty, hearing from leaders regularly is even more important. Ninety-five percent of employees surveyed by Thrive say they want weekly status updates from their employer as the crisis continues to unfold.

Tip #2: Spotlight mental resilience for your team.

So much of the conversation about the return to work focuses on the physical. And what’s often left out is a discussion of our mental and emotional state.

As a leader, you can shift the conversation to focus on the challenges and anxieties people are really struggling with — and give them tools to build resilience.

Science tells us resilience is a muscle we can build. Dr. Tara Swart, a neuroscientist at M.I.T. Sloan, explains that “Our ability to endure and bounce back from adversity is a capability that can be built into our brain.” And according to a study in the medical journal BMJ Open, “There is growing consensus that resilience is a malleable characteristic, wherein an individual’s ability to adapt and ‘bounce back’ effectively from adversity can be developed and enhanced.”

It all begins with leaving behind a cultural norm that has been at the root of the mental health crisis: the belief that we have to be always on, and that recharging activities that build resilience are self-indulgent, instead of what they really are — investments in our own health and productivity, and the performance and success of our company.

But the key to resilience is recharging. And not just physical recharging — our brains need a rest as much as our bodies do. Start by strategically stopping. Give yourself and your team the resources to be tough by creating mental and physical recovery periods.

The following Microsteps are actions you can take to role model resilience for your team.

Microsteps

Declare an end to the day, even if you haven’t completed your to-do list. Effectively prioritizing means being comfortable with incompletions and taking the time to recharge, so you’ll return to work the next day ready to seize opportunities.

In your next team meeting, tell your direct reports how you’re taking care of yourself. Sharing your own habits will normalize these important breaks and open the conversation for them to share how they’re doing.

Tip #3: Cultivate a growth mindset to build resilience.

Many of us feel stuck right now. But we can shift our mindset from focusing on the negative to focusing on our own ability to change, improve, and persevere. This is known as a growth mindset — and it’s especially important when it comes to building resilience.

Thriving — both professionally and personally — isn’t about requiring the external world around us to be exactly as we want it to be. It’s about being able to connect with our inner resources — such as our creativity, empathy, and sense of larger purpose — that enable us to handle whatever the external world throws our way.

These inner resources are the building blocks of productivity. But we can’t tap into them when we are as anxious and stressed as most people are right now.

In times of crisis, uncertainty, and turmoil, like the ones we may be going through right now, our inner resilience is our most important resource. That has to be the bedrock on which we build our new normal. Companies realize that qualities like focus, empathy, collaboration, and inclusion are essential to win the future. But we can’t simply flip a switch and turn those qualities on. To access our creativity and ability to innovate in the middle of uncertainty and chaos, our immediate emotional needs must be met first. We can’t create and implement new solutions for the future if we are struggling to simply get through the day.

Encourage your team to use these Microsteps to support and nurture their mental resilience so they can operate from a place of strength and navigate change in their daily lives.

Microsteps

Once a day, remind yourself to remain open to change. As uncertainty becomes the new normal, being open to change helps decrease frustration associated with ambiguity. Science shows regularly reminding ourselves that change is a good thing can actually rewire our brains to handle it better.

The next time you connect with a colleague, swap “How are you?” for a growth question. Questions like, “What are you learning this week?” or “What’s one new habit you’ve built?” can give you the chance to focus on growth opportunities.

While experiencing stress and anxiety is inevitable, how we respond to stressors and manage our patterns of thought and behavior is both within our control and critical to unlocking better mental health. With this information in hand, you have a clear vision of where you’re currently thriving and where you could use a little boost. Now you can make an informed choice when selecting an area of resilience to focus on.

Investing in your health and wellbeing starts with micro-moments. Encourage your teams to take the assessment above and find a Microstep that helps you thrive.

Continue your journey and help your teams take the next step in their health and wellbeing journeys with The Leader's Guide to Work-Life Integration and The Leader's Guide to Employee Wellbeing.

Wellness Playbook Guides

The Leader’s Guide to Employee Wellbeing

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The Leader's Guide to Employee Wellbeing

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Guide #2