CHAPTER 6

Resilience Practice:
The Day to Day of Being
a Resilient Leader

We have learned in our own leadership journey that resilience is a practice. We are not universally resilient; every situation requires its own kind of resilience. At times resilience deserts us. Resilience is not a destination we can tick off our list. So we practice. We believe that we are stronger in our leadership selves through this practice. We would love to be able to say that this practice fends off despair and never requires a state of forgiveness, but that is not true. What it does offer is a strength within our leadership selves that is available to us when we need it. The practice can soften the edges of despair and accelerate the journey to forgiveness. It cannot halt the march of hope, despair, and forgiveness through a leadership life. Rather, practicing builds our resilience and makes us stronger.

This chapter is about the practice of resilience in the day to day of leadership. What follows are resilience practices based on appreciative inquiry. We have touched on some of these practices in other parts of the book, but here we flesh them out as daily leadership practices that foster resilience. As one interviewee said “appreciative inquiry gives you great courage.”

The appreciative resilience practices that work for one leader will not necessarily work for others. Every leader’s practice is individual. When leaders ask us about the practice of appreciative resilience, we are very clear that there is no template for the practice; rather it is finding within appreciative inquiry those practices that foster hope, sustain oneself during times of despair, and prompt forgiveness. The day to day of being a resilient leader is about attention and intention: attention to the practices of daily leadership that make a difference to being resilient, and intention to foster that practice over time. In the next section, we depict how the principles can come to life in daily practice. The section that focuses on what is working illustrates how leaders can discover what can be built on and taken into the future. The section on gratitude outlines how a gratitude practice can sustain leaders daily. The wellness section touches on resilience practices that engage the body, heart, and mind.

Living the AI Principles

Jacqueline Kelm first introduced us to living the AI principles through her book Appreciative Living: The Principles of Appreciative Inquiry in Personal Life (2005). In chapter 2, we examined and defined in more detail the basic principles of AI: constructionist, poetic, simultaneity, anticipatory, and positive. Here we provide short definitions. The constructionist principle posits that we construct our leadership reality with others as a relational experience. The poetic principle suggests that the past, present, and future offer endless opportunities for interpretation—somewhat like a piece of good poetry. It also suggests that what we focus on creates our reality. The simultaneity principle suggests that change begins as soon as we begin to inquire and ask questions. The anticipatory principle proposes that the visions and images we hold about the future guide the actions we take to create that future. The positive principle holds that positive emotion is vital for growth and change (Kelm 2005).

All the basic AI principles function together as a group and over time can become an integrated practice. To illustrate this idea, we have created a fictionalized story of one leader’s experience. After the story, we offer some prompting questions to assist in integrating AI principles into a leadership practice.

Harry was fired many years ago. Over the subsequent years, he deeply reflected on his part in that firing and the part that was outside of his control. Harry had been much beloved at the organization, and his firing stunned both him and the organization. But looking back on the experience, he could see where he had influenced the outcome and where others had used circumstances to their advantage. The experience profoundly changed who he was as a leader, and the tenets of his leadership that were most important to him remained. He believed in kindness, collaboration, and celebrating the craft and wisdom of others. What he learned was that sometimes, as a leader, one loses and loses big—in this case, gets fired.

Harry returned to his love of leadership and obtained another CEO position several years after being fired. In this position, he was hugely successful. Harry practiced appreciative inquiry in his work and life and believed that a big part of his ongoing success and resilience was due to that practice.

One day many years later, Harry was invited to lead a national session of other CEOs on leadership integrity, grit, and courage. This was an honor and a recognition of his work. This session would also put him in the orbit of those who fired him, something that had never happened before. Harry went to his practice of the AI principles to think through the invitation.

He knew that in the job from which he was fired, he had socially constructed with those around him the culture and conditions that led to his dismissal. Before him in the upcoming encounter, there would be an opportunity to socially construct a new reality with people he deeply felt were good human beings who had acted in ways they felt were right and just.

The poetic principle led him to choose what to focus on. Harry focused on what being fired had taught him about leadership, community, belonging, and resilience. Before him was the opportunity to share and build on some of those insights with others—to choose to focus on the journey rather than on a single stop in that leadership journey.

In the upcoming workshop, Harry was going to ask leaders to share a story about a positive leadership shift that had happened as a result of a major leadership misstep. He knew that by asking this question among other CEOs, he would simultaneously prompt change, because in the asking, he was tapping into the desire to change, grow, and flourish.

The anticipatory principle was the most difficult for Harry because, of course, he was afraid. What if one of his old colleagues approached him and asked what right he had to lead this session? So Harry practiced.

He envisioned in his mind the goal of a successful forum and set out to design that into being. He held in his mind’s eye the power of reconnecting with grace with those who had harmed him and those he had harmed. He held in his mind’s eye the humility he felt in being asked to lead this forum and how it would be successful because he had learned and grown as a leader.

Harry was usually positive, so the positive principle was easy. Harry had worked hard since he had been fired, not just to be a better leader, but also to deeply seek, in the most complex of situations, the positive core.

As Harry said yes to the invitation, he reflected that much of his leadership resilience came from the practice of the AI principles. Hope was easy for Harry, so in times of hope he just needed a quick drift through the principles. In his despair after being fired, however, he had found himself purposefully practicing each one of them, using them to uplift himself and move forward, even on those days where nothing seemed possible. In the end, Harry began to realize that by accepting the invitation, he was entering into forgiveness of himself and others.

Living the principles is about building into your daily routines reflection points about how these principles are playing out in your leadership and amplifying how they might influence being and action. Integrating the principles is about intention: the intention to ask the kinds of questions of self and others that prompt the principles into action:

1. What am I contributing to the social construction of our reality?

2. How is my worldview influencing the social construction of our experience, culture, or outcomes?

3. What am I choosing to focus on?

4. How is that focus fostering the work of the organization?

5. What kinds of questions am I asking of my team, my colleagues, or myself?

6. How are these questions prompting change?

7. Does the team or the organization, or do I, have a clear picture of the future of the organization? Can we really see it?

8. What in this situation is positive?

Integrating the principles is about practicing questions like these in times of hope, which are for the most part easier leadership times, so that these questions and actions are readily available to you as a leader in the times of despair and forgiveness. The practice of the AI principles is a powerful movement toward being resilient. This practice gives you deeper and richer resources to draw on in your work.

A Focus on What Is Working

In a problem-based world, it is very challenging to keep a leadership focus on what is working. We believe that focusing on what is working matters as a practice that builds appreciative resilience. Leaders are bombarded by problems every day. A focus on what is working pulls them out of that mind-set of problem- and deficit-based thinking to begin to see what is right and what is good inside a team or an organization. Joan worked for a president who made this a practiced part of her leadership. She started every meeting with the question “What do we have to celebrate?” As Joan and other leaders in the room shifted their mind-set to uplift the stories worth celebrating, the entire feeling in the room shifted. The thinking shifted from “We have problems” to “Yes, we have problems needing to be solved, but we also are doing some things right.” This particular leader had several catastrophic events occur within the organization in a short period of time. Joan always noted that she started every conversation during those very difficult times with some version of celebrating the skills of the people handling those events.

Focusing on what is working inside a team or organization builds resilience for the individuals and the group by constantly reinforcing a drive to be excellent, not because of fear, but because their successes are celebrated. Celebrating what is working is like depositing resilience into an emotional bank account for later use. This bank account helps leaders deal with uncertainty, fear, and stress. In a crisis, a leader can tell others, verbally or through action, that their jobs, livelihood, and reputation are on the line, or they can share what is working well and uplift the drive of people to repair and rebuild.

Like the other ideas in this chapter, the practice is sometimes harder than the idea sounds. It takes a conscious and mindful effort to focus on what is working. It takes the practice of pausing and thinking through the situation from multiple perspectives and asking powerful questions. This practice is easier in hopeful times, and we suggest that these are the times to begin the practice. If leaders practice a focus on what is working in hopeful times, they will find it much easier to do when a crisis arises. It is difficult to focus on what is working in times of despair, yet it is possible if one has practiced in times of hope. As leaders move through the element or state of despair, it is very difficult not to assign blame, seek justice, dole out retribution, or withdraw. In forgiveness, one must hold what is working close to one’s leadership heart, because a focus on what is working and forgiveness are linked together. Without leaders focusing on what is working or on what is possible, forgiveness cannot happen.

Focusing on what is working well is a practice that trains leaders to seek out the appreciative stance and, in doing so, discover what can be built on and taken into the future.

Gratitude Practice

Gratitude is a form of appreciative inquiry practice that we have done for many years. We learned ways to enhance that practice from The Joy of Appreciative Living (Kelm 2008). We have experienced the power of our gratitude practice to shift our emotions to positive ones. Positive psychology researchers such as Barbara Fredrickson (2009) have scientifically shown that positive emotions enhance resilience. A gratitude practice is one of the ways in which leaders can foster those positive emotions, focusing on their leadership work or personal lives. The focus on what is positive in one’s world at that moment is what matters. Listing positive items in one’s life promotes positivity, which as noted earlier is linked to resilience. Kelm (2008) recommends writing down three gratitudes each day. She suggests taking this practice further by adding to the gratitude or appreciation list one thing to do that day to evoke joy and a vision for the day. We have practiced this in our leadership lives for many years. The power of this practice is that even in the darkest of times, we focus our energy on what is powerfully positive in our lives that day. There are days in every leader’s life that if someone were to ask, “What are you grateful for today?” the immediate answer would be “Nothing!” However, on reflection, even in the tough times, there are things to be grateful for. Joan reflects:

Recently, we have lost several colleagues to untimely deaths. It has caused me to despair about how very short life is and how fast it goes by. I am not young anymore, and the recognition that life will be over far too soon looms more and more on the horizon. When I feel this way, when my immediate response is that I am not grateful for anything, the gratitude practice matters most. It opens me to finding small things that are good and right in my life and opens the possibility of building from there. It invites me to see the good and the love around me.

Being grateful is a resilience practice that is simple and compelling in that it draws the mind to the positivity that can be found every day.

Wellness Practices of the Body, Heart, Mind

In this section, we touch briefly on the wellness practices of the body, heart, and mind because of the impact these practices have on resilience. These practices are strongly interconnected. In the body piece, we reflect on finding an appreciative path to physical activity. In the heart piece, we look at the need for leaders to be connected. In the mind piece, we touch on mindfulness practices.

The Body

Wellness body practices support the ability to be resilient. Joan started her own wellness body practice several years ago. Joan is large and physically active. Being large and a leader creates its own kind of sustained despair, in a world where being thinner is a highly prized goal. Over her life, people have been very willing to make suggestions about her dress, her size, and the latest fad diet, as if she had never heard these ideas before. The goal setting and the weight loss programs were not in any way increasing her wellness, nor were they appreciative in any way. So instead of setting a goal, she created a single appreciative process that works for her. Instead of setting a goal of how far she would walk or how far she would cycle or how many times she would go to the gym, she simply decided to go to the top of the driveway every day and see what would happen. The top of the driveway became a metaphor for Joan in her wellness. She started using this metaphor at pools and gyms and for other adventures. She set no goal other than showing up. It created freedom to just be, to adventure and to experience the power of her body. It became a kind of mindfulness practice, the simple walking to the top of the driveway and seeing what would happen. In times of hope, it was easy to get to the top of the driveway. In times of despair, the top of the driveway was just a short distance away. In times of forgiveness, the top of the driveway was enough. This practice kept Joan continuing on, being resilient in her body.

We are not suggesting that leaders should throw out their wellness goals and their marathons and their training regimes. The top of the driveway is Joan’s metaphor for creating wellness space in her life. What we are suggesting is that you find something that is framed in the practices of appreciative inquiry. Discover what you are good at—the top of the driveway. Dream what might be—the wonder and joy of just turning left or right. Design what will be—a trip to the top of the driveway each day. Explore the destiny—live it more and more.

The Heart

The practice of heart is about leading in connected ways with others, putting people front and center. As Jeanie found in her master’s research, “Connected leaders, recognizing their responsibilities to others, make decisions based on the ethic of care and connection” (Cockell 1993, 28). Connected leaders focus on people’s strengths and contributions, demonstrate care for the people they work with, and create collaborative opportunities where people share power with each other.

Formal or informal leadership can be a lonely place. Leaders serving organizations or groups can find themselves disconnected from others. This happens simply as part of the nature of stepping into the vocation of leadership. In the loneliness of leadership, it becomes all the more important to take care of the heart, especially in a hierarchy. Hierarchies separate people from one another and make it challenging to work collaboratively with others. Many leaders with whom we have worked describe their organizational structure as made up of silos. In these silos, connected leaders work hard to bring people together. Appreciative inquiry can help connect people across silos. Engaging in large AI processes that include the whole system promotes opportunities for people to interconnect across the silos. Care and connection are fundamental to all states of resilience—enhancing hope, supporting people in despair, and prompting forgiveness.

One of the leaders we interviewed shared a story that is an example of a daily practice of the heart and appreciation. He intentionally hand-delivered a birthday card to each of the staff of the organization of which he was president. He admitted that given his schedule, the cards didn’t always get delivered on time, but this practice did give him a reason to spend a few minutes with staff and talk about whatever was on their minds. He used this process as a way to promote social interaction, experience those around him, and let them experience him. These interactions had no goal other than connection; the card was the excuse to make that connection. In doing this connecting, he also demonstrated his care for people in his organization.

Not all leaders can deliver birthday cards to all their staff, but they can seek out ways to intentionally have interactions in the workplace that, through care and connection, offset loneliness—a companion of despair—with hope.

The Mind

Mindfulness, as defined by Kabat-Zinn (2017) on the Mindful website, “is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally. . . . It’s about knowing what is on your mind.” We encourage leaders to reflect on how they might build mindfulness practices that support their own resilience. Mindful practice brings to leadership an ability to attune to what is happening without the drive to immediately fix it, judge it, or change it. It creates space to be, if only for a moment. There are many different practices of mindfulness. Here we give two examples from our leadership work.

The first example is Jeanie’s mindfulness practice through yoga. She brings mindfulness to the movement that engages her body in getting stronger and more flexible. By going to a class, she also engages with others, and this social interaction also adds to her emotional well-being, the heart. She has other mindfulness practices, such as pausing in her workday to be quiet without distraction for a short time. Like Joan, she appreciates the importance of just showing up for practices that enhance body, heart, and mind wellness to build resilience. This practice brings a core of centeredness to her leadership work and is part of her resilience.

The second example is about labyrinth walking as a mindfulness practice. Both of us have used labyrinth walking as a meditation practice. Labyrinths are single-path mazes found in many parts of the world and have been used by many cultures for centuries. Labyrinth walking meditation is very simple: walk, following a single path that curves and winds into a center, pause to reflect, and then walk back in reverse along the same path to exit the labyrinth. After walking the labyrinth as a personal practice for many years, we developed the Labyrinth and Leadership workshop, which provides leaders a space to deeply reflect on leadership and their understanding of resilience through appreciative inquiry. In the workshop, we provide appreciative inquiry prompts that leaders can reflect on during the walk or after they have completed it. In between labyrinth walks and reflection on appreciative questions, leaders share thoughts with others that help build leadership insight and strength.

Finding your own mindfulness practice can be a strong part of building your leadership resilience. Mindfulness practice creates the space to be present with what is, and in being with what is, you can see what might be.

Departing Thoughts on Resilience Practice

We love the word practice and its core definition of doing something again and again to become better at it. Practicing resilience is like this. As leaders, we return again and again to the practice field to refine and hone those things we know can make a difference in resilience. Practice is not about arriving at a destination. It is about advancing the practice, about becoming ever more resilient within the recognition that no leader can be impervious to the onslaught of a leadership life.

Let’s return to Harry’s story to illustrate the practice of resilience:

Harry had for many years practiced appreciative inquiry, but it was not until he found himself caught in despair after being fired that he began to examine forgiveness. Harry knew he was not innocent in his demise. He also knew that much of his work had been successful and that he was loved inside the organization. So, simply put, he was both responsible and mistreated within a perfect storm of events. He worked hard to hold these two realities. He knew he needed to deeply understand that he could not go back and somehow lead differently than he had. He could not make it right. He also held the belief that the people who had acted against him were good human beings. They were doing what they thought was right.

After the firing, a great many things were working well for him. His phone was ringing with job offers and possibilities of new adventures. He realized, however, that he was stuck. He could list what was working well, he could see the positives in his life, but he couldn’t move forward. He couldn’t move forward because he needed to do two things. First, he needed to forgive himself for failing and to learn the leadership skills that he would need in the future. Second, he needed to forgive the people whom he cared about who had betrayed him when he really needed them.

Harry set out to forgive, and it was not easy. He had tried to maintain a focus on what was working. He had a gratitude practice. He practiced being healthy. He was loved and had a wonderful family around him. Still it was hard. Harry set out on a journey of forgiveness by trying to see the perspectives of other people and to deeply appreciate that they were acting in a way they felt was right. Also, he sought to understand what he was learning through these experiences and how he could apply that learning to other situations. Harry found the practice of forgiveness complex. Forgiving others was easier than forgiving himself. Over time, Harry began to realize that forgiveness was setting him free to learn new things about leadership, to move forward with hope to a new CEO position, and to live in a leadership place that focused on what was working well.