Building Resilience is the First Step to Building Better Leaders

When launching a Leadership Development initiative with our clients, we begin with a simplified leadership model to help leaders regain a sense of control, agency over their time, and assurance that they’re focusing on the most mission-critical goals of the organization.

We assert that given all of the responsibilities that can consume a healthcare leader’s time, trying to be focused on everything actually prohibits them from being focused on anything.

Instead of chasing so many different priorities, we simplify the focus of the health system’s leadership team with a model we call the “Four Focuses of a Leader.”

We help leadership teams realign their communication, meetings, goal-setting, and strategic planning around these focuses to help them increase their impact and start gaining traction on vital organizational goals.

This simplified focus helps magnify the leadership team’s efforts, improve outcomes of initiatives across the board, and build a strong and healthy foundation we can continue to build upon over time.

The first pillar in building this strong foundation is Focus #1: Instilling personal and team resilience.

The First Focus of a Leader: Resilience

Our first focus of a leader, resilience, centers around our own personal care and well-being and extends to a commitment to prioritizing the care and well-being of our team. ​

The main goal behind investing in resilience is ensuring we are healthy and thriving and have everything we need to bring our absolute best selves to work and deliver the best possible care for our patients.​

Without stores of personal resilience, we operate with diminished capacity and abilities. ​We’re essentially operating on an empty tank and running on fumes.​

When we’ve maxed out our resilience reserves, our performance suffers, conflict increases, our team struggles, deadlines and deliverables are missed, and we run the risk of burning out completely. ​

We may have witnessed many of our colleagues and friends suffering from an empty resilience account during the pandemic.​

​Though people pulled off incredible feats and found miraculous ways to endure, many of the strategies used to make it through the crisis were unsustainable, and some people even gave up on healthcare and abandoned their careers altogether. ​

Building Reservoirs of Emotional Strength

We need our reservoirs of emotional strength to be overflowing during good times so we have plenty to draw upon when times are tough. ​

As leaders, we need to commit to building systems that contribute to long-term wellness for all, even if it doesn’t feel like the most urgent priority to us now. ​

Prioritizing resilience practices is one of those slow and steady investments that may feel like a distraction when we’re consumed by other priorities, but it will be our biggest missed opportunity down the line if we haven’t made that investment. ​

It can take days, weeks, months, and even years to really fill up our resilience reserves,​ and failing to intentionally invest in these stores consistently will have a compounding impact because it will be too hard and take too long to get back to baseline when we’re facing our next crisis. ​

Stressing our physical, mental, and emotional systems to the max can eventually cause us to lose our best employees and can contribute to critical patient-care errors.​ And, in the world of healthcare, those errors can have life altering, or even life-ending consequences.​

How Full Are Your Resilience Reserves?

Let’s take a moment for a resilience audit and determine how full your resilience reserve-account is now. ​

Think about your past week and note any activities that filled you up, energized, and fueled you. ​Then, think about everything you dealt with that drained you and emptied your reserves.​

Consider everything you did that filled you up and fueled you as a deposit into your resilience bank account. ​Then, subtract every taxing event and activity that drained you, as if you made a withdrawal from your resilience account.​

Did you have more deposits or withdrawals to your account this week?​

If you could add it up, would you be operating in the red with a negative balance? If so, what could you do to get back in the black?​

Habits to Rebuild Your Resilience

If you find your resilience account is overdrawn, there are many different practices and habits you can add into your daily routine to help build back your reserves. ​

Many of us have different ideas of what truly restores us, but usually the most restorative activities center around physical activity, silence and meditation, time with loved ones and family, spending time outdoors, and engaging in a creative outlet. ​

Take time to make a list of everything that recharges and restores you. What helps you recover and de-stress from a long day at the office?​

We like to call this master list our “bucket list” —not as a list of things you want to do before you die, but as a comprehensive overview of everything you can do to fill your bucket back up.​

Think of everything on your bucket list as the ultimate “how-to” guide for helping you be your strongest, best self every day. ​

But, don’t leave this list tucked away.​

In order to get the true benefits of your bucket list you need to make time for these essential, life-giving opportunities, even in the midst of a busy schedule or chaotic season.​

The Power of Routines in Building Resilience

To help you automate these important activities, it’s essential to build them in to your regular routines. ​

In healthcare, we design lots of routines and processes to ensure the most important things get done. ​Ensuring you have everything you need to stay resilient is one of the most foundational and essential aspects of your role as a leader, so we must create easy, attainable routines to help us get them done.​

Hal Elrod authored a simple-to-read, yet highly impactful book called the The Miracle Morning. ​

In it, he encourages all leaders to take the first hour of every day all to themselves to devote to building their resilience through a standardized morning routine.​

By claiming the first hour of the day, just for you, you can ensure that you’re starting the day off on the right foot, that you’re beginning with a full bucket, and that you’re more able to give your talents and gifts throughout the rest of the day.​

Though you can adopt whichever habits and practices from your bucket list will best fuel you, Elrod recommends six types of activities to maximize your golden hour:

1. Silence – quieting your mind and blocking out the chatter through meditation, prayer, or focused breathing​
   
   
2. Affirmations – telling yourself encouraging words to help you achieve your goals, overcome fears, and feel happy​
   
   
3. Visualization – imagining yourself doing each thing you need to do for the day and really envisioning what it would feel like to succeed​
   
   
4. Exercise – moving your body with stretching, walking, or a jog. Getting moving allows blood and oxygen to flow to the brain and improves overall mood and perspective
   
   
5. Reading – Filling your brain with positive thoughts and ideas to improve yourself
   
   
6. Scribing or Writing – journaling to process your thoughts and reflect on what you have achieved.​

With six key activities and 60 minutes, you could spend an even 10 minutes on each activity or flex to spend more time on a specific practice that would be most meaningful for you. ​

​Maybe you combine activities—like quiet meditation and movement as you take your dog for a walk, or you could check off reading and movement by listening to an audiobook or inspirational podcast while you stretch.​

Your Miracle Morning may look much different than your colleagues’, but getting clear on what most fills you up and restores you—and then making time to commit to those activities on a regular basis—will be a game changer in helping you to excel as a leader. ​

When you’re operating at your highest capacity, you can take anything that comes your way in stride and better support your teams with anything they need, too.​

LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE: 5-Day Resilience Routine

Take the first step toward prioritizing your health and wellbeing with a 5-Day Resilience Routine Challenge.

Determine which activities will best fill your bucket and map out an hour each morning (or night) to intentionally commit to activities that fuel you and help you regain your strength and vitality.

Note how you feel at the beginning of the week and how your mood, energy, and attitude improve after five days of honoring what most strengthens you.

Even better, get your team involved and offer a small prize for anyone who completes the challenge with you!

You will see huge dividends on your investment and see that you’re much more able to withstand the changes and challenges that come with serving in your role in healthcare.

Your vitality and ability to adapt and respond as a leader is essential to providing better patient care and leading your health system well. If you’re ready to level up the leadership at your organization and make a commitment to improving your team’s health and wellbeing, contact our team today.