Resilience - Inclusivity

The Includer builds a resilient team by fostering and modeling trust and inclusivity.

The Includer embraces the idea that an inclusive workplace is one in which injury, mental illness or disability do not present obstacles to a fulfilling life in work.

The Includer builds inclusivity through the creation of diverse teams.

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Resilience - Removal

The Removalist works to remove the stigma of mental health in the workplace.

Stigma can be one of the greatest barriers to psychological health and safety in the workplace; therefore, it can have a direct impact on employee resilience.

We need to remove the stigma so that employees experiencing mental health issues can reach out sooner, access resources to assist and return to well-being. Generally, less than 1 in 3 employees struggling with a mental health condition seek help.

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Resilience - Cultivation

The Cultivator creates the environment for innovation.

Organisations that cannot innovate to stay ahead of the game will cease to exist.

Employees who do not feel safe to contribute through creativity, experimentation and innovation will have low resilience. Therefore, as a leader, you need to cultivate an environment in which innovation thrives.

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Resilience - Development

The Developer creates a culture of learning. When change is constant and ever increasing in speed, leaders need to move from programs of training to a continuous learning and development model that repeatedly builds employees skills and provides a range of formal training options.

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Resilience - Modelling

As a leader, your employees are looking to you to model resilience. They want to see how you deal with the pressure of constant and uncertain change. They want to see how you deal with setbacks, let-downs and failed attempts at success, and still manage to bounce forward. They will take their cues from you, so it is imperative that they see you modelling resilient behaviour.

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Karen's Conversations #45

Great pleasure talking with Ram Kumar about work-life balance and motivation.

How do you find work-life balance? How do you find a role model? Do you know your happy place?

How do you find motivation and be inspired? We explore those questions and so much more.

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Resilience - Reinforcement

The Reinforcer reinforces desired behaviours. Positive reinforcement builds resilience.

Research through the years has shown that employees that are positively reinforced, work together more efficiently and harmoniously and are more resilient in the process.

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Resilience - Connection

A resilient team is one in which employees have a shared sense of purpose and connectedness.

The Connector creates cultural experiences and means of engagement that allow for better collaboration.

The Connector encourages cross-functional collaboration to draw on the diverse set of skills and capabilities within an organization.

They provide cross-functional teams with a shared purpose and provide them with the autonomy to solve problems, seize opportunities, experiment, innovate and make decisions within provided parameters.

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Resilience - Psychological Safety

The Caretaker makes sure that there is psychological safety in the workplace.

The term ‘psychological safety’ was first coined by Amy C. Edmondson in her 1999 research study of workplace teams. Edmondson is a Harvard Business School professor and defines psychological safety as:

“Psychological safety is a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes."

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Resilience - Autonomy

The Autonomizer provides employees with autonomy which is the freedom to do their job their way.

Autonomy gives employees the power to shape their work environment in ways that allow them to perform at their best.

The benefit to both the employee and the organization is that employees are happier, more engaged, more committed and motivated, more productive and less likely to leave the organization.

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Resilience - Identification

The Identifier identifies the signs of low resilience early and takes immediate action. When an individual shows signs of low resilience it is often a mental health issue.

It could be the result of stress, anxiety, fatigue, or other factors.

The Identifier constantly looks for signs of low resilience so that action can be taken before the situation worsens.

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Resilience - Communication

The Communicator has excellent communication skills. Effective communication builds positive relationships, which promotes resilience at work.

The Communicator keeps everyone informed about what is happening. When people feel engaged and involved with what is happening around them they are far more resilient than they would be if they felt they were being kept in the dark.

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Resilience - Leadership

Building, maintaining and sustaining a resilient workforce requires leaders not managers.

The Leader provides individuals with guardrails or principles by which they operate.

The Leader provides clarity of purpose. When leaders are clear about what needs to be achieved and why, everyone is on the same page. Everyone is working towards the same goal.

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Resilience - Leadership Superpowers

In my leadership model for resilience, I have assigned leaders twenty superpowers that should aspire to master over time.

These superpowers are all traits and capabilities that leaders need to create a resilient workforce.

Using these superpowers not only increases resilience but also increases employee engagement, motivation, performance and productivity.

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Resilience - Three Reasons Why

From my perspective, there has been a lot of talk about resilience in the workplace throughout 2019 but little action.

Firstly, let me be clear that when I talk about resilience in the workplace, I am not talking about resilience in the face of bullying and harassment, bad bosses, toxic environments and the like. Those things are the cause of low resilience in the workplace and should be eradicated.

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Adaptive Leadership Teams - Role Fluidity and Shared Leadership

Role fluidity is at the heart of total football. Every player is prepared to move into another playing position as the game dictates. No player is in a predetermined role at any point. 

Adaptive leadership teams move fluidly both horizontally and vertically across roles. 

Leadership has to be shared and be allowed to emerge given a particular context. In a VUCA world, we cannot rely on a handful of people with grand titles to lead the organization at all times and in all situations.

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