Corporate leaders believe that resilience -- the ability to overcome challenges and turn them into opportunities -- is key to keeping your job, according to new research from Accenture. The just-released research, Women Leaders and Resilience: Perspectives from the C-Suite, found that 71 percent of corporate leaders worldwide report that resilience is very to extremely important in determining who to retain. These leaders also view women as slightly more resilient than men.
As Adrian Lajtha, Chief Leadership Officer at Accenture points out in the company’s press release, "In the current world of economic uncertainty and intense competitiveness, organizations that instill resilience in their up-and-coming leadership will have a clear advantage."
So the question becomes: How do you make sure your workforce as resilient as it can be?
Resilience --- the combination of adaptability, flexibility and strength of purpose --- is strongly linked confidence, which can be built or learned over time. “Confidence comes from competence, or mastery, and from being part of a community of skilled professionals” says Adam Alexander, Vice President of MasteryWorks. “People who know they are good at something have more courage to take on the ‘real’ issues in a project. They have enough practical experience to know what works and see new opportunities. They are usually the real innovators in organizations.”
To build a resilient organization, Alexander recommends placing high-performing individuals into a rotational program as part of their career development. This aids them in building their confidence in various situations within the organization and growing their network. Planning realistic goals for each individual in each assignment in the rotational program is critical. “Since executives are less likely to view women as more confident than men, working with a variety of key people and demonstration of success among high-performing women in the organization is critical,” adds Alexander.
Adam Alexander is Vice President of MasteryWorks, a leading career development solution to large- to mid-size companies. He can be reached at aalexander@masteryworks.com<mailto:aalexander@masteryworks.com> or 703-256-5712.
