Increasing resilience through courageous leadership

Abstract

Leadership changes. Today, managers are expected to be quicker and more agile, more willing to take risks, more confident in dealing with complexity and more tolerant of ambiguity (Gebhardt et al. 2015; Roche et al. 2014). In addition to these challenges, they are responsible for their own performance and health and share responsibility for those of their employees. This does not leave the health of managers untouched (Nielsen and Daniels 2012). Research shows that stressed managers are less able to support their employees, which in turn affects employee stress levels (Roche et al. 2014). This makes it all the more important for managers to deal with the issue of resilience in order to be able to keeping an eye on resources and being able to stand up again after inevitable setbacks and not pass the pressure on to the employees unfiltered. On the other hand, due to the fast pace of life and the necessity to promote innovation and creativity in companies, today it is also increasingly important, that managers give up power and decision-making authority, let go of control, allow employees room to grow and promote initiative and courage.