Resiliency: Your ability to be a good leader in an imperfect environment, not trying to create the perfect environment to be a good leader.

Resiliency is what keeps us on our game despite all the things that try to derail us.

We all have things that knock us off our game and make us less than we can be or want to be. Take 30 seconds and think about what those derailers are for you. For example, I’m not at my best when:

• Someone doesn’t do what they’re supposed to do
• I don’t have all the information I need to do my job
• Someone gets overly emotional

Derailers are unmet stress needs

The things you need in order to be your best are called “stress needs.” They’re the flip side of derailers. So, using our examples above, to be your best:

• You need people to do their job
• You need all the data
• You need cool, capable team members

Resiliency comes into play when stress needs aren’t being met. When you think about your day-to-day reality, there are probably just as many times (or more) that your stress needs aren’t being met as when things are smooth sailing.

Part of being a great leader is continuing to lead well even when the people or the environment is not at its best.

To do that, to be that consistent leader, you have to understand what’s going to derail you and not let it take you so far off that you can’t recover and self-correct.

You’re always going to face challenges with not enough time or resources or people or tools, and no one listening to you. That’s just the nature of leadership. So the challenge of leadership—really the art of leadership—starts in this very imperfect environment.

Resiliency means you are psychologically hearty enough to be able to deal with that. To walk into a situation and be resourceful because you expect these issues will occur and are ready to turn them around in a positive way.

Everyone has different stress needs

Different things derail different people, and that’s normal. People aren’t necessarily trying to throw you off—their needs are just different.

The quality of your leadership is in your ability to deal with different kinds of actions and people and coax them, align them, and lead them to a different mindset.

Resiliency is critical to ownership, which is critical to being a great leader.

Ownership is easy in a perfect world…where you control everything, like everybody, have enough time. Everybody’s idea of perfect is different. But it rarely exists. So the idea is to be resilient enough to lead in this imperfect environment, not try to create the perfect environment to be a good leader. That’s a mindset of ownership.

Think about it. When you’re at your most compromised, how do you react? How do you see others? How do you see yourself and your situation? And how do you LEAD right through it all? That’s resiliency!