Develop a resilient approach to your leadership style and benefit your business

I think that’s worth talking about resilient leadership in the workplace.

Something that you might struggle with, is having empathy with your team

It is a challenge to engage your team in a culture of continuous improvement and problem-solving. To conduct yourself in a manner that’s going to always work to get the best out of people. Because if you don’t cut yourself a little bit of slack personally, you are going to struggle to be empathetic to anyone else. You will struggle to have empathy with people’s different styles of working and thinking. Or dealing with conflict. Or dealing with struggles and problems at work.

I don’t mean that you need to be best friends with them on the weekend

That’d be nice. But it’s also kind of awkward when you need to have a conflict with them. And you can have a conflict with people. Just treat them with respect. Accept that it’s okay to get along really well with somebody one week, and then have to maybe pull them into line the next week. Cut yourself some slack on that.

Having a high level of empathy for your team is important

But it actually starts from having a high level of empathy for yourself, by maintaining effective coping mechanisms. You do need times when you “check out” at work, and are not thinking about it. Times when you’re not running at 110%. Give yourself time to think at work. Take the time to observe processes or spend time observing what’s going on, working out where the weak points in our value stream are. That is “check out” time, where you build resilience and empathy as a leader because you’re not doing anything that’s creating, right there and then. You’re not rushing around. You’re not firefighting. You’re not problem-solving. Just thinking. That downtime is important.

Broaden that idea to your own personal life

Give yourself that downtime. Where you just think, relax and take it easy. You’re going to be in a much better position to connect well with your team. You can push back against that mindset of focused on problem-solving, rushing and stressing.

At the end of the day, the goal is to enjoy our lives

Enjoying your life is a balance between finding meaning, finding struggle, finding purpose in struggle, and enjoying the easy times. Not everything’s going to be easy. I liken being a leader in a Lean environment to being periods of struggle, and periods of celebration, and then periods of stress when things don’t quite go according to plan. But the idea is to constantly build your resilience, to have empathy for your team, and to realise they’re just humans like you are.

Put yourself in their shoes

Your team is not always going to be brilliant at what they do. They’re not always going to be error-free in the way they work. They’re going to lash out at each other. You’re going to have HR issues and stuff like that. Seek to understand what’s going on there. Take it easy on yourself as well.

Reach out if you want to know more about how to create a culture of continuous environment in your workplace.

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Respect,

Daniel.