The role of resilience and positivity in leadership effectiveness 

Leadership is a quality that has always been important, often misunderstood and now, in the 21st Century, it has a renewed importance. It’s at the top of the development agenda for many. 

Leadership has to deal with complexity and change like never before, and it will get tougher still. Does the well-evidenced Mental Toughness concept have a part to play in effective leadership? 

Understanding Leadership and Mental Toughness  

Leadership is widely defined as something like: “Leadership is… influencing, inspiring and directing the performance of people towards the achievement of key goals – and creating the sense of success in the short and long term” 

The first part focuses on the individual. The second addresses culture.  

In 2005 research found that there are 3 broad areas of behaviour supporting effective leadership: 

Determination to deliver – having purpose and commitment to achieve that purpose. 

Engagement with the individual – ensuring all are competent (mastery) and have the autonomy and resources to do their job. 

Engagement with Teams – Creating a culture of collaboration to optimise activity.  

Mental Toughness is a personality trait that describes an individual’s mental response to stressors, pressure, opportunity and challenge. Very well evidenced, it consists of 4 constructs with 8 factors. It explains why we behave the way we do. Briefly summarised below: 

The ILM72 is a behavioural psychometric measure which assesses the above 3 broad competencies (and 6 aspects of leadership style discussed in the next article). The MTQPlus is a high-quality psychometric which assesses mental toughness in terms of the 8 factors. 

The underlying theme for both is enabling people to be the “best that they can be”. 

Mental Toughness and Leadership Effectiveness  

If we start with Determination to Deliver, this brings together having a sense of purpose from where goals come, avoiding distractions and self-belief that the purpose is achievable. Sharing this with others together with a strong focus on delivering that purpose provides one component of intrinsic motivation for those who follow the leader. 

All 8 mental toughness factors are relevant here. Life Control and Confidence in Abilities support that self-belief in themselves and in their skill set. Emotional Control describes the ability to maintain poise when times are difficult. Goal and Achievement Orientation are central to this competency.  

Risk Orientation represents the boldness to accommodate new ideas and opportunities. Learning Orientation supports a focus on solutions and continuous improvement. Finally, Interpersonal Confidence represents the capability to explain confidently what the leader seeks to achieve and to deal with criticism or doubt. 

Next, we look at Engagement with the individual. Continuing with the intrinsic motivation theme, This competency addresses optimising the contribution that each individual can make by engaging with them as unique individuals and providing them with the autonomy to do their jobs without standing over them. Most respond positively to this.  

It also addresses the idea of mastery – that each individual feels that they are adequately skilled and resourced to be able to achieve what is expected from them. 

For the leader, this requires firstly Interpersonal Confidence. Firstly to enable the individual to be confident in the support they receive as well as being there to listen to the individual. 

Having self-belief, both in oneself as a person who can do this (Life Control) and in one’s abilities to engage effectively (Confidence in Abilities), also underpins the leader’s approach. 

Again all 8 factors can influence the leader’s behaviour in this regard. Trust requires a degree of Risk Orientation, getting it right in the long term requires learning orientation and maintaining poise requires emotional control. 

Finally, Engagement with Teams. This brings another important dimension to optimising what people can do. When people collaborate, they invariably perform more effectively and collaboration can be a significant factor in wellbeing if teamwork is managed and led effectively. 

This addresses the need to develop and support teams, working across all teams as well as within teams. The best leaders create a teamworking culture. 

The mental toughness factors described for engagement with the individual apply equally here. 

In summary 

It is often said that it is not difficult to know what leaders should know and do. The challenge lies in the application. This is not easy. People are complex and each responds differently to the same stimulus. The situation is always complex and uncertain and can be ever-changing. 

What matters, as always, is the attitude that leaders bring to their role to do the right things. Two of the most important aspects are resilience and optimism which we know as mental toughness. 

This matters for success.  

For information about the Mental Toughness concept (and other AQR materials) and for becoming a licensed user of the MTQ suite of measures contact:  headoffice@aqrinternational.co.uk The MTQPlus measure is available in fourteen languages, accessible to more than 2/3rds of the world’s population. Completion of the AQR Licensed user training programme is recognised by EMCC and ICF for CPD purposes.