Coaching for Resilience
Get the coaching conversation going about resilience
This job aid is for leaders who want to unleash resilience skills in themselves, their team, and their organization. It offers questions to prompt individual reflection and support conversation in peer or team coaching groups.Note*
Resilience
What it is
- Resilience is the capacity to adapt well to stressful situations and bounce back from life's challenges.
- Anyone can build their resilience.
Why it's important
- Resilience provides individuals and teams with the strength to withstand stress and disruption.
- It can help people maintain well-being and cope better—even thrive—in times of uncertainty.
How it works
- Building blocks that contribute to resilience:
- self-awareness
- optimism
- character strength
- self-regulation
- mental agility
- connectionNote**
- Reflecting on experiences with coaching questions creates opportunities to learn and develop these building blocks.
Questions to use with your peers (Peer coaching)
Use the questions in this section to guide a coaching conversation with peers for self-reflection and leadership development. You can use any of these suggested questions in any order.
Hindsight
- How open are you to seeing the positive in setbacks you experience? (Optimism)
- What are some benefits of your recent telework experience? Some learning? Some challenges? (Connection)
- What are some key learnings about your team's resilience? (Team awareness)
- How far do you consult with your team members on issues that could affect them? How much listening do you do? (Mental agility)
Insight
- How would you define your sense of purpose at work? (Character strength)
- What specific actions do you take to calm your mind when stressed out or overwhelmed? (Self-awareness)
- How much space do you allocate for your team to explore or adapt it's sense of purpose? (Mental agility)
- How open are you to letting your team see your own vulnerabilities when you are struggling with a personal growth challenge? (Self-regulation)
- How aware are you of the diverse needs of your team members? How might their individual realities impact their resilience? (Self and team awareness)
Foresight
- What new daily practice could you adopt today to support your resilience and thrive? (Self-regulation)
- What cues could you use to better monitor your levels of energy (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual)? (Self-awareness)
- What action could you take from now on to foster a resilience-building culture in your team? (Optimism)
- How might you use group storytelling to shape the future of the team? (Character Strength)
Questions to use with your team (Team coaching)
Use the questions in this section to guide a coaching conversation when leading a coaching conversation with team or group members. You can use any of these suggested questions in any order.
Hindsight
- As a team, what are some of our best "failures" that bring us to the edge of learning? (Optimism)
- What aspects of a recent experience can we celebrate as a team accomplishment? (Connection)
- What beliefs or expectations in the past few months might have prevented us from bouncing back faster? (Mental agility)
- Over the past few months, how have we helped each other cope with feelings and emotions? (Self-regulation)
Insight
- Why does it matter that we talk about our team resilience? (Team awareness)
- How can we draw on our diversity to strengthen our resilience? (Mental agility)
- What assumptions do we make about the impact of external changes on us? (Self-awareness)
- What is within our control to manage as a team? (Optimism)
- What aspect of resilience seems particularly relevant to our team right now? (Team awareness)
Foresight
- What specific practices would help us adopt a positive mindset in evolving situations? (Optimism)
- If we demonstrate more group resilience, what kind of behaviours would we see? (Self-regulation)
- What kind of support do we need to build our team resilience? (Connection)
- Based on what we have experienced together over the last few months, how can we thrive as a team? (Character strength)
- How can we adapt our team norms to be more inclusive, so that the whole team can thrive in the face of challenges? (Mental agility)
Tip
Building and sustaining resilience is a continuous process. Leaders who pay attention to the importance of resilience in themselves and their teams will see positive gains in areas such as well-being, fulfillment, and performance.
The resilience building blocks are:
- self-awareness
- optimism
- mental agility
- self-regulation
- character strength
- connection
