Resilience. A blessing or… a curse?
There are numerous articles, ebooks, books on building up resilience to cope with the uncertainty of the Covid times. Today I ask myself a question: is resilience a blessing or a curse? Carry on to find out more as I compare societal vs. corporate resilience.
As I was reflecting on the disastrous situation in which Lebanon is, with one of the most extreme economic crises it’s ever experienced (and it has had a few!), a corrupted political system with the same individuals in power since the 1980s, the 2 blasts and a regain of Covid 19 cases; I couldn’t but admire the people of Lebanon and their resilience to bounce back and carry on, no matter what.
In the corporate world, resilience is praised. The Ability to rebound when things don’t go to plan, when a meeting with key stakeholders for a project approval gets steered on a complete tangent and we don’t get the approval we wanted. When we don’t get the job or promotion we’ve worked so much for. I’ve been told in my early days of corporate life that I wasn’t resilient enough and that this showed when I was deflated. This was identified as an area of development. A few years later I was invited in front of a group of future women leaders to talk about… resilience. So what had changed in between? Had I become less attuned to my emotions? Did I care less? Had my skin thickened despite the regular saunas and hammams?
And this got me thinking on the downside of resilience. Is there a thing of being too resilient? And what does it mean?
The downside of resilience
In the case of Lebanon, it means rebuilding the country no matter what. For the Nth time. And this is great… to a certain extend. It also means the people don’t take the time to mourn, a key step in any healing process. Or them doing the job of the government, clearing up broken glass from the streets. Accepting the status quo. Being defeatist in thinking the system will not change and that they need to change around it.
In the corporate world, resilience could lead to taming one’s individuality. Having to fit in. Reacting in a way that is expected, not being expressive [the emotional build-up happens in the background and can affect other areas of one’s life]. It is conducive to building up hypocrisy and cowardness. A strong corporate culture expressed coherently across the organisation is required to still provide employees with a safe place to express themselves and rebound, without putting too much pressure.
So, what is resilience to you? And where on the scale of resilience do you fit in? I would love to hear your comments 🙂
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