Integer Leadership Consulting

One of the reasons that termination and unemployment exacts a toll on one’s psychological well-being is that we are too deeply connected to our work. In addressing the psychological meaning of employment, Freud (1930) observed that work was man’s strongest tie to reality and its reversal, unemployment, can loosens man’s grip on reality. Following Freud’s line of reasoning, Jahodia (1982) stated that the “psychological needs met by employment are probably deeper and more enduring than the institutional arrangements to which we have become accustomed as satisfying them” (p. 61).

When one experiences involuntary job loss, a number of psychological stressors are activated. The more meaningful our work the more disruption occurs psychologically. The more meaningful the work coupled with the length of time we have been engaged in that work, again, the greater the likelihood that psychological disruption will unsettle our sense of well-being. The process of appraisal and coping with this loss is determined by the amount of harm/loss and threat that the job loss represents (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).

Notice the massive increase in mental stress that often results during periods of job loss as reported in the media. The last 15 months, we have witnessed dramatic increases in the disintegrating mental state or mental homeostasis of those who have lost their jobs and as a result overwhelming mental health help lines. The issue is that for many, they have lost far more than employment and the resulting economic crises that can quickly follow. For many, they have lost a significant source of existential meaning. Freud was right…we are deeply connected to our work, more so than we may understand. What have we lost beyond actual employment? We have lost a sense of purpose (I work therefore I am) and we have a diminished sense of value (we are worth less as an unemployed person in a culture that worships productivity and professional contribution).

One might suggest that because the West has put far too much emphasis on the meaning of work, the subsequent identity attachment that is framed around employment as a result can be deleterious to well-being. The work becomes “the soul” and when work is lost the soul loses it’s way…it’s true north. Could it be, then, that our own culture’s propensity of attaching inordinate meaning and significance to work is ultimately destructive? In cases such as involuntary job loss and the resulting psychological repercussions, the answer may well be “yes.”

If you are or know someone who has experienced involuntary job loss, develop a new appreciation for the larger existential issues you (or they) are confronting. At times such as these, let us find ways to rally around those who have been “existentially wounded” by unemployment and do what we can to be a constant reminder that fundamental value and worth far surpasses the matter of employment. This is a difficult to message to hear when one is psychologically traumatized by the magnitude of this type of loss. Nonetheless, perhaps the crisis can be an opportunity to redefine our sense of meaning and purpose.

Jeff

The untold story about involuntary job loss is that individuals take a tremendous psychological hit. The USATODAY link, though somewhat dated at this point, begins to go into greater detail. The work of the Gallup-Healthways index (http://www.well-beingindex.com/) as well as the Usatoday story (http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-03-11-stress-poll_N.htm) presents data that supports the precipitous decline of the psychological health of those who are impacted by job loss.

With massive unemployment (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm) one can only image the psychological disruption that is taking place in the lives of those who have been involuntarily terminated. What most of us see are the individual stories of those who are struggling to make-ends-meet financially. What is often not seen and even less understood is how forced unemployment undermines psychological health.

The work of Janoff-Bulman (1992) on shattered assumptions helps us to understand just how psychological disruption takes place when one is confronted with, for example, unexpected unemployment, that leaves a person feeling victimized and vulnerable.

The good news is that the work of Carol Ryff (1989) on well-being has proven to be a promising resource that offers excellent insight into the problem. Ryff takes an approach that excites me as an instructor. Ryff and Singer (2003) observe that while there is much to be learned about fostering and facilitating resilience, public education and community intervention programs should capitalize upon opportunities that employ the tools that promote resilience. We need to begin to marshall our best resources around this issue - especially academic, professional and technical knowledge, coupled with an understanding of how to apply the cognitive and behavioral tools that promote and embed resilience. As instructors we have a responsibility to give our students their best shot at success. The question is, “How do we make that happen?”

A Strategy for Promoting Resilience with Adult Learners

While instructors can pick and choose among different resources to construct a resilience curriculum, they may well be frustrated by the lack of coherence and theoretical alignment of this approach. It is tough to piecemeal such a vital teaching construct as resilience. I believe I can offer some helpful insight drawn from my own sometimes frustrating experience.

I consulted with Dr. Carol D. Ryff (see the aforementioned and references) sometime ago asking her the question, “What key research would you suggest I review that focuses on the way that adults learn resilience?” Dr. Ryff’s response to me was exactly what I was looking for. She believes that the research on promoting well-being can be closely linked to promoting resilience. After consulting with the research Ryff had referenced (Fava & Cuini, 2003; Fava, Ruini, Rafanelli, Finos, Conti, & Grandi, 2004) and additional resources that were referenced in other related research (Ryff, 1989a; Ryff, 1989b), I designed a curriculum utilizing content from these sources and focused the teaching and discussion on the critical themes of well-being as indicators of resilience. These themes, drawn from Ryff’s work (1989) on well-being were: self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life and personal growth.

Embedding Resilience within the Conversation About Strengths

At Olympic College we run a two-day, two-credit course called Improving Human Effectiveness which utilizes the Gallup Institutes’ resources on strengths. I incorporated into this course the curriculum on well-being. Day one, entitled Discovering your Strengths: Getting Clear On What You Bring To the World, focuses on introducing students to the concept of strengths building. We interpret the Strengths Assessment, connect strengths to academic and career planning, and then apply a strengths strategy within organizational settings. Day two, entitled Building a Strong Life: Creating an Environment Where Your Strengths Can Flourish, focuses on the larger life-context in which the students can successfully live-into their strengths. The fundamental rationale in this approach is that, while it is important to identify and operationalize your strengths or “signature themes,” it is equally important to nurture the personal practices that foster resilience and to intentionally create larger supportive networks. Only then can a person withstand the stiff resistance and intimidating challenges that consistently occur and often undermine the energy needed to apply a strengths strategy in and out of the workplace.

Sample Schedule of the Improving Human Effectiveness Course

Day 1: Discovering Your Strengths: Getting Clear On What You Bring To the World
1. Welcome, Purpose, Agenda, and Introductions
2. Introduction to Strengths and Positive Psychology
3. Trombone Player Wanted segment 1: So What’s Stopping You from Discovering Your Strengths?
3.1. Exercise and Discussion on Peak Performances
4. Trombone Player Wanted segment 2: Do You Know What Your Strengths Are?
4.1. Understanding How Strengths Work: Talents, Skills, and Knowledge
5. Trombone Player Wanted segment 3: How Can You Make The Most Out Of Your Strengths?
5.1. Designing Your Academic and Career Strategy With Your Strengths In Mind
6. Trombone Player Wanted segment 4: How Do You Cut Out The Weaknesses?
6.1. Identifying the Obstacles Of Living Into Your Strengths
7. Trombone Player Wanted segment 5: Why Is It So Hard To Talk About This?
7.1. Maximizing Your Strengths in the Organization and Work Setting
8. Trombone Player Wanted segment 6: Why Can’t This Last Forever?
9. Concluding Thoughts

Day 2: Building a Strong Life: Creating an Environment Where Your Strengths Can Flourish

1. Why Strengths Are Only Part of the Equation of Succeeding Personally and Professionally
1.1. Reflection: Identify Your Greatest Barriers to Your Personal and Professional Growth.
2. Building Well-Being and Resilience Into Your Life: The Key to Living Into Your Strengths
3. The Five Critical Factors that Promote Resilience
3.1. Dispositional Optimism
3.2. Healthy Environments Which Foster Empowering Habits and Entrepreneurial (possibility) Thinking
3.3. Supportive Champions and Advocates Who Promote Coping and Self-Disclosure
3.4. Creating Social Capital
3.5. Identifying Reflective Physical Environments
4. The Six Dimensions that Promote Personal Well-Being
4.1. Self-Acceptance
4.2. Positive Relations With Others
4.3. Autonomy
4.4. Environmental Mastery
4.5. Purpose in Life
4.6. Personal Growth
5. Commitment and Conclusion

Summary

There is much more work to be done in the area of promoting an understanding of well-being and resilience with the students in our community colleges. The unique mission of the community college creates the kind of learning environment where academic learning can be strategically connected with the insight needed to survive and excel in an increasingly difficult world. To teach in this environment, working with these students, toward these critical ends is both a responsibility and a privilege!

Understanding and Experiencing Resilience

Resilience is defined as a dynamic process encompassing positive adaptation within the context of significant adversity (Luther, Cochiti & Becker, 2000). Positive adaptation means the ability to adjust or respond to adversity in such a way that emotional and cognitive equilibrium is maintained. Instead of being completely derailed or paralyzed by unanticipated and difficult circumstances, one is able to understand and rally the resources necessary to move through crises successfully. My own experience with significant adversity has convinced me that adapting to sudden and unexpected setbacks does not come naturally for most adults, especially those adults who have not learned coping skills during critical developmental periods such as childhood and adolescence. It must be learned and incorporated into one’s approach to daily living. The question then becomes, “How do adults learn resilience?”

Research on Adults and Resilience (macrolevel domains)

The research on resilience formally began by studying resilient children, specifically, how children who were subjected to adverse family situations (such as poverty, uneducated parents, mental illness, alcoholism and divorce) managed to negotiate these significant barriers and emerge as successful adults (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1998). This line of research which focused on the benefits of adversity signaled a fundamental shift in developmental psychopathology from a preoccupation on deficits or pathology to a focus on strengths (Lepore & Revenson, 2006). In her landmark longitudinal study, Werner (1989) showed evidence that, while a majority of children who experienced extremely difficult environments developed behavioral and learning problems, a full third matured into healthy and well-adjusted adults. The characteristics which created this capacity to move through adversity included strong social skills, building on successive coping successes, a stronger sense of self-efficacy and self-esteem (Rutter, 1987; Garmezy, 1985). In other words, as some children learned to manage adversity, they tended to become more confident and skilled at continuing the practice into adulthood.

Lepore and Revenson’s (2006) evaluation is very helpful in further understanding what facilitates resilience in adults. They identify five domains or research trends that figure prominently in resiliency. The first domain is dispositional optimism which is defined as “the stable, generalized expectancy or belief that one will experience good things in life and that future outcomes will be positive” (p. 31). Dispositional optimism is expressed in the following ways: the willingness to try harder, the ability to reframe negative experiences in more positive ways, the tendency to discover benefits in adversity and to remind oneself of those benefits (Affleck, 1999), knowing when to jettison unattainable goals or even worldviews that no longer apply and look for new ones and a strong social network of relationships providing enhanced social resources (Lepore & Revenson).

The second domain is resilience-promoting environments or how key social influences surrounding the individual promote resilience. Lepore and Revenson (2006) suggest three environmental qualities that advance the development of resilience: environments that encourage physical and mental health; environments that champion normative development; and environments that cultivate social cohesion and social capital. I have found evidence aplenty that underscores Lepore and Revenson’s emphasis on the importance of environment. Many students, while seeming to possess the necessary drive to perform well academically, are often surrounded by toxic and acrid environments which can dismantle academic focus and vocational aspiration. This should serve to remind those of us who teach that many factors beyond the classroom may influence, even mitigate against, a student’s academic performance.

The third domain is safe social environments that promote coping. Lepore and Revenson (2006) note that individuals who have access to others with whom they can self-disclose are more resilient than those who do not. This accessibility to supportive others and subsequent self-disclosure builds a strong social network in which the individual can be encouraged, explore alternatives for action and alleviate emotional distress. When students have champions and supportive advocates, as opposed to consistent interaction with people who are indifferent or even hostile to their success, they stand a far greater chance of flourishing in and beyond the classroom.

The fourth domain is social capital or the presence of institutional structures rooted and grounded in the community which are available to resource the individual (Lepore & Revenson, 2006). Religious institutions, community organizations, strong schools, cohesive neighborhoods, available health care and a responsive social service network can provide supportive and timely resources to the individual facing life’s turbulence. When the resources are visible and accessible within a community, they foster the development of resiliency by offering dynamic and timely “social connections and a synchronization of resources” (Lepore & Revenson, p. 34). For example, for both members and community visitors, religious organizations offer emotional and monetary support, spiritual counsel, relational networks and meaningful connection to outreach or “mission” enterprises, all of which promote a sense of personal significance and worth. Habitat for Humanity is another example where community volunteering connects a person with a worthwhile mission and also with other like-minded individuals. The point here is to understand how meaningful activity strengthens a person’s sense of purpose and value.

The fifth domain is the physical environment. While this domain has not been thoroughly researched, Lepore and Revenson (2006) remark that it holds promise in promoting resilience. I agree. Specifically, natural surroundings which are conducive to self-reflection can be conduits of rejuvenation and restoration. A sanctuary - a safe and generative place to which one can retreat, focus, self-disclose and consider options for personal growth - may foster resilience.

These five domains serve as important factors that can catalyze the emergence of resilience. Based on my experience in the classroom, regardless of whether or not these five domains are in place (and often times they are not), students benefit greatly from simply understanding the potential value of these key factors. It is important to note here however, that the research on how to teach resilience to adults is lacking and inconclusive. The scholarly studies I have reviewed are fundamentally descriptive; they focus only on explaining the characteristics of resilience in children and/or adults as well as the life experiences that lead to the emergence of resilience. In light of this, my concern has been to identify information on resilience and intervention. The question I wish to resolve is: How do we facilitate in adults the acquisition of new tools which hold the potential to break through personal and environmental barriers that sabotage tenacity and slacken the will to succeed?

Best,

Jeffrey

As a professor of organizational leadership and resource management, I sometimes teach students in the areas of leadership development and human effectiveness in organizations. While other courses are offered in the OLRM discipline at Olympic College, the two mentioned above explore in detail the character of the leader and the personal and professional competencies required to succeed within the organization. It has surprised me that most published curriculum tends to virtually ignore the important factor of human resilience in discussions of these concepts. For example, of the texts required for these courses (Daft, 2008; Reece & Brandt, 2008), only 1 page (out of a total of 913 pages) addresses the topic of “welcoming failure” (Daft, pp. 185-186) and “resilience” (Reece & Brandt, pp. 343-344). These exceedingly brief treatments are cursory at best and offer little help in understanding what resilience is or how one becomes resilient. Nowhere in these explanations does the reader discover how to acquire resilience over time, how to learn critical coping skills that empower forward movement in the face of adversity, or why cultivating well-being is a critical component for success in the work environment, as well as life itself. The more I teach and interact with students, the more I realize that finding a way to communicate how an adult learns to be resilient is absolutely crucial to self-esteem and vocational drive.

The paucity of printed information about resilience and well-being is quite ironic, given the fact that we are attempting to facilitate learning for students who aspire to succeed in the complex and often grinding milieu of business organizations. In all of the courses I teach, students seldom understand much about the markers or characteristics of resilience. They may be marginally familiar with the definition of the word resilience but have no grasp of why it is vitally important to survival and success. To my query about the meaning of resilience, classes usually respond that it’s about “bouncing back” from difficult circumstances. Few students understand much more than that. They have no deep awareness that resilience is an experienced or lived phenomenon, that it is the challenging self-movement into and through failure despite overwhelming feelings of desperation, disappointment, and helplessness. Most definitely do not recognize how resilience could significantly impact their current and future lives.

Perhaps due to the condition of our economy and the rising tide of unemployment, coupled with the demographics of Kitsap County, many of the students I encounter seem too fixated on what they have going against them to be able to envision possibilities and opportunities. Perhaps this is true of the students you instruct as well. I often find myself inwardly blanching at the stories of hardship, despondency and indifference and self-engineered failure that have virtually locked-down students from believing in themselves or that they can achieve a better quality of life. I see the struggle in their eyes. I sense hopelessness in their voices. Despite their best efforts and loftiest aspirations, they see themselves making little to no progress in their lives. The headwinds seem too stiff and growing stiffer. The barriers appear insurmountable. And the odds feel increasingly stacked against them. They have come to believe that they lack the talent, the money, the pedigree and the connections that open the right doors for others but not for them.
I want to share with you the approach I have taken to provide a type of “immunization” against the soul-eating disease of negativity that too often derails students. In every course I teach, I build into the curriculum a minimum of one full lecture and discussion on three critical areas that directly address personal and professional growth in the face of adversity. These three related areas are resilience, thriving and posttraumatic growth: resilience addresses how to create an environment that promotes emotional health and a focus on opportunity despite adverse circumstances; thriving addresses how to foster change as a direct result of personal setbacks; posttraumatic growth addresses the positive gains that can emerge from traumatic and devastating events. Significant scholarly research supports the efficacy of all three areas, and my experience confirms the usefulness of these concepts. Thus, I would invite you to discuss with others in your discipline or academic department how students might significantly benefit from exposure to these three concepts. Even a basic foundation in these precepts would give students a compass to better navigate the unexpected vicissitudes of everyday life and professional advancement.

Best,

Jeffrey

Why do leaders need resilience in order to lead effectively? Because the work of leadership is difficult and often challenging to the point where a leader’s personal resources are exhausted. When exhaustion sets in so often does frustration and despair. If this sense of emptiness becomes a chronic state it can create a sense of defeat and impact-insignificance which then further erodes a leader’s ability to influence organizational vision, people and processes.

If you’re not sure what resilience means, take a moment to ponder this. Ryff and Singer (2003) defined resilience as “the capacity to either maintain or regain multiple aspects of positive psychological functioning in the face of difficult life circumstances or demanding transitions” (p. 185). Ryff and Singer tracked individuals confronting behaviors within the context of “naturally occurring life challenges, such as normative life transitions, critical and unexpected events and chronically occurring difficulties” (p.185). The dominant resilience question that guided the work of Ryff and Singer as they explored behaviors across these contexts was, “who stays well in the face of challenging events” (p. 185). In a similar approach, Carver (1998) defines resilience as denoting “the capacity to recover from a downturn to a former state of relative well being” (p. 247). This “bounce-back” capacity can improve over time as repeated instances of challenging events produce less severe downturns and increasing quicker recoveries (Carver, p. 248). Experience with disruption over time, as Carver views it, actually leaves individuals more capable of repairing the disruption than they were when they first encountered the disrupting event (p. 249). Masten, Best, and Garmezy (1990) define resilience as “the process of, capacity for, or outcome of successful adaptation despite challenging or threatening circumstances.”

These definitions of resilience suggest that, for leaders, you get stronger or more “immunized” against steep downturns the more you actually experience them. Resilience means that you regain your footing and regain your professional balance and equilibrium as you confront the challenges that knock your knees out from under you. Resilience does not mean you are impervious to setbacks. Rather it means you experience the full emotional impact of setbacks and the discouragement that comes along with those setbacks, yet, you work to recover and regain your perspective. Furthermore, the more you slog through the experience of working out of the difficult seasons the more capable you are of dealing with them when they confront you down the road. May this be good news for those leaders who are seeking to catch a glimpse of how to rightly perceive (or cognitivley understand) and recover from the setbacks that come with the territory of responsible leadership.

Best,

Jeff