What Resilience Means, and Why It Matters

Over the years, authors have offered an astonishingly wide range of advice to HBR’s readers about bouncing back from setbacks, both large and small. In “The CEO’s Second Act,” for instance, David Nadler observes how, after coming into a difficult situation and saving the day, a CEO will often stumble once the immediate crisis is over. Drawing on outstanding research from Boris Groysberg, Andrew McLean, and Nitin Nohria showing that leaders tend to succeed in a new role only when it’s very similar to the one they’ve just left, Nadler suggests four steps executives must take to learn to become successful in a new way: recognition that their long-honed leadership styles will no longer work; acceptance that it was they who failed in the new role and not outside forces that caused the problem; analysis and understanding of the new type of leadership that’s required; and then decisive action in the new mode.

Conversely, in “Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters,” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Andrew Ward suggest a more aggressive, ego-centric alternative. From their interviews with 300 derailed leaders, they distill five steps they contend anyone trying to recover from a career catastrophe can use to match or exceed their past accomplishments: decide how to fight back; recruit others to help you emotionally and to land another job; don’t be afraid to criticize the people who let you go; buck yourself up to try again; and find a new mission that renews your passion and creates meaning in your life.

In “The Failure-Tolerant Leader,” Richard Farson and Ralph Keyes argue for essentially sidestepping the need for resilience by creating an environment in which both setbacks and successes are treated as positive learning experiences. Leaders can create a constructive environment by breaking down social and bureaucratic barriers separating them from their followers, engaging at a personal level with the people they lead, openly admitting their own mistakes, and – perhaps surprisingly – avoiding giving out either praise or blame, and instead taking a nonjudgmental, analytical posture as they interact with staff. In “Building Resilience,” University of Pennsylvania psychology professor Martin Seligman similarly argues that businesses can help employees become more resilient. Drawing on insights from a U.S. Army program that helps soldiers bounce back after trauma, Penn’s Resiliency Program teaches students to think positively about setbacks so they don’t learn helplessness.