How Can Leaders Keep Themselves, and Their Teams, Resilient?

Resilience has become a constant theme in my work with leaders across all levels. It’s not surprising it comes up in almost every conversation given everything that’s going on in the world. So how do leaders keep themselves and their teams resilient and performing effectively when constant change and pressure has become the water we’re swimming in? 

What I find is that there’s often a double standard at play here. Leaders, particularly strong ones, are highly effective at supporting others. They provide direction, stability and advice under pressure, they are great advice-givers and ship-steerers, but they’re far less disciplined in following their own guidance. 

Leadership, by its nature, often results in people putting others first. For many leaders, there’s a strong sense of responsibility to protect their teams, support performance and create the conditions for others to succeed. Over time, that can translate into consistently prioritising others’ needs ahead of their own. But in doing so, leaders can begin to neglect themselves, because they rarely have the same support structures in place that they work hard to provide for others. And yet, if you truly want to inspire a resilient team, you have to tend to your own garden first.

Resilience today demands something different

Even just ten to fifteen years ago, resilience was framed as endurance: the ability to absorb pressure and push through. But that model no longer holds. Pressure today is constant, shaped by AI disruption, geopolitical tension, cost pressures and ongoing uncertainty – perhaps why 91% of British adults report feeling “extreme pressure”. 

“Power through” or “stay the course” were perhaps good pieces of advice once upon a time, when conditions were stable and a two-week holiday was enough to recharge. But when the course itself is constantly moving, those mantras put leaders and teams at risk of burnout.

In today’s environment, resilience is less about seeing how much you can carry, and more about knowing what to release so you can protect your energy, maintain clarity and sustain performance over time.

What I’ve found most effective are small, repeatable interventions that you can return to throughout the day. Done consistently, the following practices reduce the build-up of pressure, restore mental clarity, and create enough space for better thinking, decisions and more sustainable performance. 

Micro-rests and the leaky bucket 

Micro-rests is the first practical piece of advice I give to leaders when they ask about resilience. These are short, intentional pauses, where you step away from tasks, screens and work demands and allow yourself to breathe. You could go and have a cup of tea, for example – but make it a mindful cup of tea, not one that you sip while checking emails. 

Or you could take a quick two minute walk around the house or office (or wherever you’re working), do some stretches, even meditate. The point is to break up your day with tiny moments where you can take a deep breath, relax your shoulders, and find steadiness. This helps you to reset.

I like to call this the “leaky bucket” effect. I talk to people a lot about this concept, so I’ll immortalise it here, too. Imagine a bucket filling with water – we all have a capacity for pressure, a “bucket” that gradually fills up, and the water that’s filling it is your stress. When it reaches the tipping point, it will overflow. Your bucket may be bigger or smaller than mine or your colleagues’ or your boss’, but every single one of us has a tipping point.

Rather than waiting until your bucket is gushing water over the sides, you can poke holes in it to alleviate the volume and stop it from overflowing, creating a “leaky bucket”. Micro-rests can act as holes in the bucket allowing the water (a.k.a. stress) to leak out. The more holes you poke into your bucket, the more you lower your stress levels and stop the water spilling over. 

Setting digital boundaries

You might remember a time when people weren’t tethered to their phones or emails and they might not even have had a computer at home, and certainly not a smartphone. Having a device in your pocket that anyone can call at any time, and which buzzes whenever you get an email, is actually quite a novel experience, and it’s made it much harder to find that off-switch when you’re home. 

A second piece of advice I recommend, and one I use myself is to set digital boundaries. I, for example, have two phones: one for work, which stays in a drawer when I’m off the clock, and one for home, which only friends and family have access to. That’s my digital boundary. Other people turn off their emails so they’re not tempted to have a “quick check” after hours (which is never really quick, let’s be honest).

With technology becoming so ubiquitous, setting these digital boundaries and sticking to them is essential to building resilience. If you’re “always on”, always available, then your nervous system will always be in a state of firefighting. It’s impossible to be our best selves when we’re in that state, and it becomes much easier to crack under pressure, too. 

Lead from the front

It’s important to remember that leaders shape the environment others operate in and when leaders prioritise their own resilience, they naturally lead better and inspire more resilient teams. By modelling healthy behaviours, you teach others how to manage their own stress, to poke holes in their bucket and to build their resilience muscle. 

I completely understand the urge to put your team first, but if you’re not practicing what you preach, all your advice is just window dressing. Teams need a living example of what true resilience looks like, and how to cultivate that every day, and your behaviour sets the tone for what is expected, accepted and possible. 

By putting on your metaphorical oxygen mask first, you show others how to do the same. You give your team permission to take micro-rests, to take a break, to switch-off. 

Such things might sound inconsequential, but they are the linchpins of resilience. Teams that handle pressure best aren’t the ones pushing the hardest, but those with the clarity and capacity to adapt. And that’s built in the small, repeated and consistent behaviours people see and follow in their leader every day.

If resilience is something you’re seeing as a challenge in your organisation, I’m always happy to share more of what we’re seeing in practice. Get in touch with me today and we’ll set aside some time to chat.