Resilience – The 2nd Competency

My first semester as Assistant Dean for Student Conduct at UT Austin was, to say the least, challenging. In addition to learning a new job and making the transition from a very small college to a very large university, we had two high-profile profile cases we had to manage. Somewhere in that semester, as I was leaving work, the Dean of Students asked me what I was going to do that evening. I said I was going to wander around the mall. My apartment was in easy walking distance from Northcross Mall and I planned to go home, change clothes, and walk over there.

I’m not much of a shopper, so this wasn’t “retail therapy.” I don’t remember that I had a particular purpose in mind or why I had decided to do that. What I do remember was sometime later, the Dean commenting that she was impressed by my response. She recognized it, though I’m not sure I did, as a way to literally walk away from all that was going on at work.

I’ve written about my strategy of walking across campus as a mental break, but I don’t remember thinking of walking the mall as an equivalent action. But it was. Going to walk around the mall was both a literal and symbolic move away from all that was going on at work and it may have been the healthiest action I could have taken that evening. It was also movement which as we all know is a powerful stress reducer.

The study reported in Inside Higher Education listed seven competencies needed by university presidents (which I’ve extended to all leaders), lists “demonstrating resilience” as the second competency. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/governance/executive-leadership/2024/09/16/study-seven-competencies-presidents-need

The simplest definition of resilience I’ve found was in an article titled “Five Pillars of Resilience.” https://www.naluri.life/community/articles/five-pillars-of-resilience According to this article, resilience is “the ability to adapt well in the face of adversity. This means being able to recover and bounce back quickly from the difficulties we face. Contrary to popular belief, resilience is not a trait and doesn’t come naturally. It involves behavioral and cognitive change that practice can teach and strengthen!… It’s a process, not an outcome.”

Here are the five pillars they suggest we cultivate.

1. “Take control” – of the things that are under your control
2. “Hopeful outlook” – accepting that change is part of life not a problem
3. “Community connections” – develop a good support system
4. “Growth mindset” – helps you respond to strong emotions
5. “Self-expression” – write about our lives and thoughts, “Journaling trains you to share your joys, achievements, worries and frustrations.”

An additional part of this process is movement of any kind. Dance, sport, exercise, any kind of movement helps us stay connected to our bodies. Those of us who don’t do physical work, can often lose track of the importance of being aware of the messages our bodies send us all the time. Learning to pay attention to those messages can help us with mental and physical health and therefore resilience.

One of the things I learned from yoga is the idea that walking is simply falling forward and catching ourselves. Therefore, walking teaches us that we can catch ourselves and keep moving and it’s an important reminder to take from the physical into the mental. And walking has benefits for both our mental and physical health. “It increases the flow of neurotransmitters (chemical messengers) as dopamine, serotonins and others to our brains….” https://www.counsellingonline.org.au/blog/walk-your-way-to-resilience#:~:text=Walking%20also%20builds%20resilience%20—%20the,quieter%20and%20more%20open%20mind.

Rebecca Solnit, in her book, Wanderlust: A History of Walking, puts it this way, “Walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body, and the world are aligned, as though there were three characters finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making a chord. Walking allows us to be in our bodies and in the world without being made busy by them. It leaves us free to think without being wholly lost in our thoughts.”

One of the necessary skills of being a leader is building our own resilience so we can help others and our organizations develop their own resilience. Our willingness to model taking care of ourselves on multiple levels is one way to demonstrate our own resilience which helps others understand that we have the ability to stay the course through the challenging times.

What are your strategies for building and maintaining resilience for yourself and for your organization? Have you been practicing them faithfully? If not, I challenge you to do so. Resilience, like muscle strength and flexibility, are lost when we don’t pay attention. And if you aren’t sure what to do first, start walking today. It will be time well spent.

Take care,

Gage