"Still I Rise"

I must be getting old, for I used to dislike poetry.  Lately I have found myself reading and enjoying poetry.  I came across a famous poem by the American poet, Maya Angelou, who died just a few years ago.  The poem is called, "Still I Rise".  Perhaps Ms. Angelou had a deeper meaning in mind, but to me, this beautifully inspiring poem is about resilience.  Resilience is a critically important characteristic for individuals in any organization (see my blog post from November 22, 2016, "HRO: Commitment to Resilience") - perhaps even more so for an organization's leaders.  But what exactly does it mean to be "resilient"? 

Resilience is often defined as the ability to "bounce back" from adversity.  One of the synonyms for resilience is "elasticity" - the ability of an object to return back to its original shape after being stretched or pulled apart.  Resilient individuals, then, are those who can face adversity and stressful situations without necessarily losing their identity.  Resilient individuals follow their personal mission, vision, and values regardless of the situation at hand.  The stress of a crisis may cause the individuals to question or even re-think their goals and objectives, but in the end, the resilient individuals keep going.  In the end, resilient individuals keep pushing towards achieving their goals and objectives.

Resilience, or more accurately, the lack of resilience, is frequently mentioned with professional burn-out.  We hear a lot about professional burn-out these days.  For example, recent statistics in health care suggest that more than half of all physicians are experiencing burn-out.  Professional burn-out leads to physical, emotional, and spiritual stress, resulting in decreased effectiveness at work (physician burn-out, then, can lead to worse outcomes).  Strategies that focus on improving resilience can mitigate the effects of professional burn-out.  Leaders, therefore, owe it to themselves and to the individuals on their team to address burn-out by improving resilience.

Kandi Wiens and Annie McKee recently published an article in the Harvard Business Review, "Why some people get burned out and others don't", based partly on a study that Wiens conducted with 35 hospital Chief Medical Officers (CMOs).  Wiens reported that almost 70% of the CMOs in the study reported experiencing significant stress at work (in some cases, CMOs reported experiencing the "worst possible stress" in their current job situation).  However, these same CMOs actually experienced few signs and symptoms of professional burn-out.  What were the keys to avoiding burn-out?  Characteristics such as emotional intelligence, empathy, teamwork, and a positive attitude mitigated the effects of severe stress to prevent burn-out.  In other words, characteristics such as emotional intelligence, empathy, teamwork, and a positive attitude were associated with resilience!

As I have stated on a number of occasions, leaders need to set the tone.  Leaders need to model the right behaviors.  If the leaders in an organization aren't resilient, how likely is it that the individuals in the organization will be resilient?  Not very likely.

As Ms. Angelou tells us,

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness
But still, like air, I'll rise.