I’m developing an allergy to “resilience”
There. I said it.
Resilience is real, and wellbeing matters. But I keep watching organisations pour money into resilience workshops, wellbeing apps and fruit in the kitchen, while the things wearing their people down go untouched. Short staffing. Restructure after restructure. Workloads no one could carry well.
Too often, "resilience" is code for "absorb the dysfunction". The message underneath: the system is fine; you need to cope better. I've worked through three restructures, and I know how that message lands. If we're honest, many of us have passed it on to our own teams too.
And it lands as shame.
If I were stronger, I wouldn't be feeling this.
I wouldn't mind so much.
I wouldn't be carrying it home with me.
Are you telling yourself that if you were more resilient, you'd cope better with situations no one should have to cope with?
Resilience doesn't mean
"harden up"
Most of us learned resilience as endurance: toughing it out, weathering the storm, still standing at the end, looking unaffected. So when we're affected, and tired, and it follows us home, we decide the problem is us.
It shows up in how we lead. We armour up. We push through. We tell our teams the goal is to get back to normal as fast as possible. We harden, and hardened leaders stop taking in new information. Or we quietly collapse behind a composed exterior, and call the exhaustion normal.
The alternative to hardening up is a different question: what needs to be restored?
That question is the heart of self-tending: the regular, unglamorous work of noticing what's running low in us, and tending to it before it runs out. Sleep. Energy. Patience. Connection. A sense of why the work matters. In the restorative cycle I teach, this is Restore: getting our balance back, and learning from what knocked us off it.
Resilience grows from what we restore, far more than from what we withstand.
And restoring needs compassion, both halves of it.
Soft compassion lets us notice what's running low without judging ourselves for it. Of course this is hard. Minding is what caring feels like under strain. Your reaction makes sense.
Fierce compassion protects what we restore. It sets limits. It names what keeps draining people, and raises it, for yourself and for your team. Some things shouldn't have to be coped with.
Soft compassion on its own can slide into coping with things no one should have to cope with. Fierce compassion on its own can harden into blame. Together, they let us tend to ourselves and change what needs changing.
Notice: what needs restoring?
At the end of a demanding day, take five minutes with these three questions:
Where am I running low? Sleep, energy, patience, connection, meaning, or something else.
What would help restore it, in a small way, this week? Answer as kindly as you would for a friend.
What keeps draining it, and does someone need to hear about that?
The first question is noticing. The second is soft compassion. The third is fierce compassion. Notice which one comes easily, and which one you'd rather skip.
A quiet invitation
If this landed somewhere real for you, it might be time for a conversation.
Restorative leadership programmes help leaders steady themselves, raise issues early and rebuild trust across their teams. Leadership coaching offers one-to-one thinking partnership for leaders in complex roles. [Explore support for leaders]
If you'd like to talk, get in touch at heather.bailey@thinkfresh.nz. I read everything.
Warmly,
Heather
When we thrive, our people and the mission thrive too.
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