Building Robust Organizational Resilience Amid Uncertainty: A Guide to Cultivating Strength In Workplace Culture

Social resilience, too, is an imperative aspect that involves having the capabilities to work with others to achieve collective success.

Is culture primarily organic, or can it really be shaped? Representative image.

By Antony Alex

Over the past few years, the concept of resilience has become increasingly common when referring to essential elements that contribute to organizational success. Adversity, coupled with a rapidly changing marketplace, has led to the realization that resilience isn’t just an individual trait; rather, it is one that can manifest in the organizational culture itself. The increasing awareness around mental health and well-being has also made us realize that resilience can be ‘cultivated.’

This brings us to the first question: is culture primarily organic, or can it really be shaped? In my experience and as research in this area has proven, leaders of great organizations have ‘built’ salient workplace cultures—sometimes inadvertently. Adequate research has repeatedly shown that workplace culture is closely linked to business outcomes, and these leaders have demonstrated that having cultures (sometimes as strong as their personalities) has allowed them to navigate through otherwise challenging circumstances. To illustrate this, I’d like to invite you to a small exercise: close your eyes and think of one organization that you admire for the kind of business outcomes it has achieved (only condition: it should be one that has existed for some time—perhaps about two decades). Most, if not all, of these organizations have robust cultures and effective leadership in place.

However, resilience is more than just ‘strength.’ While organizational resilience has been defined differently at different points in time, it can today be considered as the ability to respond under circumstances that may threaten its survival, while recovering and developing through uncertainty, ambiguity, and even destruction.

Culture is closely linked to leadership capabilities, and therefore, a conversation on organizational resilience may need to begin with resilient leadership. Leaders and people managers have a direct impact on employee experience and expectations. Leaders are expected to exemplify behaviour that employees are then expected to emulate.

The Centre for Creative Leadership suggests four core areas of resilient leadership: physical, mental, emotional, and social. In my observation, we most commonly speak of physical resilience. Next, we have begun to build our awareness around mental resilience. However, as leaders, we may need to focus more on emotional and social resilience, as they are critical when leading teams and organizations to success during adversity.

These aren’t new conversations, though. Emotional resilience can easily be connected to emotional intelligence and empathy—attributes of any truly successful leader. Social resilience, too, is an imperative aspect that involves having the capabilities to work with others to achieve collective success.

What I am trying to arrive at is the fact that resilient leadership is an aspect that we have been grappling with for a while. The concept and the need for resilience have been the foundation of leadership since time immemorial. Yet, we’ve needed extreme adversity in recent times to remind us of it. My understanding of the reason for this is no different from my understanding of why many leaders don’t prioritize culture in itself—because during challenging times, when our businesses are threatened, we don’t necessarily prioritize culture. We focus desperately on achieving business outcomes in a distressed bid to survive—overlooking the most significant aspect of survival, i.e., a strong culture that percolates from the top.

On the other hand, once resilient leadership is inculcated, it's just a matter of time before it permeates the organizational culture. Resilience seamlessly integrates into daily operations, influenced from the top down across various requirements and dialogues. Essentially, a culture of resilience entails situational awareness, acknowledgment of vulnerabilities and risks, and the ability to adapt despite these challenges. All of these elements hinge on resilient leadership, making it a fundamental precursor. Further, building such resilience isn't feasible only during uncertain times. Resilient leaders and organizations proactively equip themselves to navigate diverse situations and circumstances. While this preparation primarily begins with a mindset, it progressively extends into the development of systems and processes.

(The author is the founder and CEO of Rainmaker, a culture and compliance learning solutions company)

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