Building and Leading Resilient Teams Competencies

When morale is low, performance suffers. When morale is high, performance can soar. Climate is about the shared perceptions and attitudes of teammates. Your team’s climate can change quickly, for better or worse, based on your actions and the actions of teammates. You will be taught how to raise your team’s morale by creating a positive climate for people to work in. The result will be more flexibility, creativity, and openness to new ideas. Positive emotions help people cope with stress. Teams that work in a positive climate are better able to bounce back from adversity, and then adapt and grow together because of that adversity.

The best measure of a team is how well it performs under pressure. When the going gets tough, the tough get going…by working together as a team. This maxim holds true for front-line teams, executive teams, and all other teams in between, including yours. You will be taught how to boost teamwork by developing the cohesion of your team. The result will be more supportive and dependable relationships. Developing cohesion enhances well-being, reduces stress, and enables your team’s creativity and collective decision-making. Cohesive teams in the workplace are better able to bounce back from adversity, and then adapt and grow together because of that adversity.

When your people have a sense of purpose for the work that they do, they are more motivated and committed. You will be taught howto provide purpose in the workplace by challenging people to be their best. Most people are looking to grow personally and professionally. You should challenge each person on your team to learn new skills. You should challenge the team to learn new collective skills together. You can also provide purpose by helping your team understand how their work supports the organization’s mission. When people have a sense of purpose at work, they are better able to bounce back from adversity, and then adapt and grow together because of that adversity.

When people work together as a team, they create shared experiences that they can learn from. As a leader, you are expected to facilitate this experiential learning process. Learning is how teams solve problems and overcome challenges. You can lead the learning process by ensuring that your team is constantly reflecting on its past and present experiences to assess performance and find ways to improve. As your team develops new ideas for improvement and change, you will need to approve and prioritize those ideas. Most importantly, it’s your responsibility to make sure these ideas get put into action, tested, and validated. Some ideas will work; some will not. Either way, team learning has occurred.

Organizations that cannot learn are doomed to repeat the same mistakes. Gaining a competitive advantage is hard. Maintaining a competitive advantage is even harder. To survive and compete over time, organizations must be willing and able to learn and to change. In fact, without learning, there can be no change. This is true for individuals, teams, and organizations of all types. And just like individuals and teams, when an organization bounces back from adversity, learning is how it adapts and grows. Resilient organizations are learning organizations. In learning organizations, leaders at all levels build and lead resilient teams.