Resilient Leadership

It is only fitting that as this Mother’s Day rolls around, I stop to remember the person who raised and nurtured my husband to be the loving, humanitarian man that he is.

My mother-in-law was ahead of her time. If she had grown up in my generation, she would have been a highly successful business woman. I was always impressed with her pride in being a smart woman. There were a number of things that activated her to feel passionate and excited, the primary one being when women she knew would achieve and succeed. She always championed my drive to grow in my professional life, and often her support and cheer was far greater than that of my own peers or family. In a way, she got to live vicariously through my success and my rising position in the work world. From my own vantage point, I strongly sensed her angst at not being able to have more access to getting paid for what she was worth and gleaning respect that comes with compensation.

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In 2008, Gallup scientists reported on a research project that surveyed more than one million work teams, conducted more than 20,000 in-depth interviews with leaders, and spoke with more than 10,000 “followers” around the world asking people why they followed the important leaders in their life. Results of their research launched a new perspective on the question, “What makes for good leadership?”

One of the surprising outcomes was the debunking of the myth that leaders need to be what they called “well-rounded,” which I take to mean that good leaders do not need to be talented, gifted or skilled in all aspects of leadership. The Gallup findings say that good leaders focus on the strengths they have, not their weaknesses, and use those strengths to their best advantage.

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I’m reminded of that old Bob Dylan refrain: “Come gather ’round people wherever you roam, and admit that the waters around you have grown.” The end of the calendar year brings each of us to the end of waters we’ve navigated over the past 12 months. During this transitional time of the season I start wondering what there is for me to learn from the events of the past and how to take that learning into the next year.

All too often, people think that change will flow because they want it to. We can wish all we’d like on a star, but hope alone never gets us unstuck or helps to improve a situation. Activating the positive, supportive voice within increases courage, ease and assertiveness. Aren’t these the qualities that have us be more successful with anything — be it a relationship or a work project? Sure they are.

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The way I see it, every generation of girls is taught to find value and identity through the way we look and the way we impress others. That certainly was the case when I was growing up. Thankfully, when I came of age in the 1960′s and 70′s the fashion of the day wasn’t marked by ultra-thinness and ultra-sexiness. In today’s world, according to Peggy Orenstein, contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine, “girls are trying to look like grownups and adults are trying to look girlish.” Clearly something is out of whack.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to hear Peggy speak at the 21st Annual Renfrew Center Conference. This conference has always been a source of inspiration and empowerment to me and many others psychotherapists throughout the country. Beyond learning about the healing power in the therapist-client relationship, it is here that therapists empower each other to grow, expand conceptual frameworks and discover what really makes a difference in helping women heal and find their way to emotional and physical health. If you aren’t a psychotherapist this may seem like a no-brainer, something that one would expect to happen all the time in lots of different venues — but believe me, it doesn’t. It was over a series of years that the speakers at this annual conference gave me the strength and resolve to speak my truth and trust my instincts as a therapist.

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As a leadership development coach, I was thrilled when I noticed that April’s Harvard Business Review was entirely devoted to the topic of failure — how to understand it, learn from it, and recover from it. It spoke about resilience — the capacity to rebound from failures and disappointments — and the importance of speaking to ourselves from a positive attitude that interprets experience as rich with lessons and opportunities to learn and move on.

Many of us, even very successful people, struggle with a harsh Inner Critic that tells us that we are not smart enough, talented enough, attractive enough, etc. The Inner Critic holds us hostage, inhibits our expression, creates fear and anxiety, and sometimes blocks our most creative output. The Inner Critic is an internal force that blocks the development of resilience by assuming and predicting bad outcomes. It distorts our perception of neutral situations by projecting a negative outlook.

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