Having employees and managers who are resilient and able to bounce back from setbacks, who are adaptable to challenges as they arise, and who are able to maintain a high level of performance while under pressure, is very valuable.
But what are the characteristics of resilient people, and what makes an employee resilient? In this post, we will explore 10 key traits of resilient people and provide practical strategies for developing these qualities within your workforce.
What are the key traits of resilient employees?
Resilient employees tend to recover from setbacks, remain effective and productive when circumstances change, and deal with problems without becoming overwhelmed.
They also tend to manage pressure well, learn from difficult experiences, and keep moving forward despite workplace challenges.
For more practical workplace guidance, explore our resilience and confidence at work guides.
What Are the 10 Key Traits of Resilient Employees?
What are the key traits of resilient individuals? Resilient individuals often show the ability to be adaptable, have strong emotional intelligence, tend to be optimistic, and exhibit strong problem-solving skills. Furthermore, they tend to be good at managing stress. These attributes enable them to work through challenges while maintaining their well-being.
1. Adaptability
Resilient employees use adaptability to adjust to changing responsibilities, workplace conditions, and new challenges without becoming overwhelmed.
For resilient employees, this might be the ability to adapt to:
- New and changing job responsibilities
- New IT systems, equipment, or technologies in the workplace
- Changes to team structures, such as a merger
Employees who can adapt quickly are much less likely to feel overwhelmed by these changes, and they are more likely to see opportunities in these new situations.
How Can Managers Develop Adaptability?
Encourage a Growth Mindset
Developing a team and workplace where you promote and encourage a growth mindset means creating a positive atmosphere where you invite greater employee engagement.
A growth mindset is the belief that we can develop through effort, learning, and practice, rather than relying only on natural ability.
As a manager, encourage your employees to see change as new opportunities for growth rather than seeing them as obstacles, and lead by example with a positive mindset.
For more practical suggestions, see our eight tips on how to develop a growth mindset at work.
Offer Cross-Training and Job Rotation
Cross-training will give your employees the chance to learn and develop new skills aside from their own roles.
These new skills can help them be more versatile and better prepared for handling unfamiliar or demanding tasks when needed.
Likewise, job rotation programs, where employees temporarily switch roles, can also help in terms of adaptability because they introduce employees to different parts of the company and give them a greater overall understanding of the business.
Provide Learning Opportunities
Providing continuing professional education opportunities, such as on key soft skills employees need, helps them develop the skills and knowledge needed to better adjust to new responsibilities or changes in the workplace as they occur.
>> Adaptability training & teaching materials
2. Emotional Intelligence
Strong emotional intelligence (EQ) skills are closely aligned with the ability to be resilient.
EQ is about the ability to not only be self-aware of one’s own emotions, but also the ability to have a strong appreciation and understanding of the emotions of the people we manage and work alongside.
In the workplace, resilient employees who are emotionally intelligent tend to regulate their emotions well, handle stress effectively, build positive workplace relationships, and remain composed under pressure.
They are also better at showing empathy to colleagues, and this helps to create a more positive and supportive workplace.
How Can Managers Develop Emotional Intelligence?
Emphasize Self-Awareness
Employees can develop better self-awareness through mindfulness practices and through EQ training, including via activities such as reflective journaling.
Employees with good emotional intelligence skills are generally calmer and more thoughtful during challenging times.
Provide Emotional Intelligence Workshops
Consider offering a one-day emotional intelligence workshop, especially for managers.
For managers, emotional intelligence is a key attribute of good leadership, and training for managers in EQ is a particularly good idea.
3. Problem-Solving Skills
Resilient employees use problem-solving skills to assess challenges, consider practical options, and take constructive action when difficulties arise.
How Can Managers Develop Problem-Solving Skills?
Encourage Critical Thinking
If you are managing a team, try to promote and embrace the idea of critical thinking by encouraging your team to constructively and openly question assumptions and consider a variety of solutions before making any decisions.
In other words, try to make your team a part of the decision-making (where practical) and challenge your employees to come up with innovative and creative ideas.
Offer Real-World Problem-Solving Scenarios
Incorporate simulations, case studies, or role-playing exercises into training programs to give employees practical experience in resolving real-world challenges.
For example, teams could be asked to brainstorm solutions to hypothetical company crises or work on group projects that mimic real industry problems.
4. Optimism
Optimism is another one of the characteristics of resilient people, including employees.
Optimistic employees are not simply positive for positivity’s sake, but rather because they are able to see the opportunities in difficult and challenging situations, and they tend to have a growth mindset.
A growth mindset allows these resilient employees to work through challenges with motivation and intention.
How Can Managers Develop Optimism?
Model Positive Leadership
As a leader or manager, your actions will play a vital role in the optimism your team has.
By demonstrating optimism and resilience yourself, as a leader, you set a very powerful example for those you manage, so always consciously use (or learn to use) constructive and positive language when addressing challenges and managing your team.
Encourage Reflection on Successes
The art of acknowledging employees’ achievements (no matter how small), such as by celebrating wins in team meetings, can really help employees maintain a positive attitude, build confidence in their abilities, and become more resilient.
5. Perseverance
Resilient employees also tend to be good at persevering, even when faced with difficulties, remaining focused on their goals, and pushing forward as though it is a challenge to overcome rather than to set them back.
How Can Managers Develop Perseverance?
Set Clear, Achievable Goals
You can help any employees you manage by helping them to build perseverance by guiding them to set SMART goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
Breaking large tasks into smaller and more manageable goals can help employees avoid the feeling of being overwhelmed.
Promote a Culture of Perseverance
Encourage a workplace culture where being persistent and putting in strong effort is valued and rewarded.
Make a point to recognize hard work so that even when the goal has not yet been achieved, employees feel supported along the way.
Provide Mentorship and Support
It can be worth considering offering mentoring for employees who you feel might benefit from it, so that they can learn to develop into more resilient employees.
6. Accountability
Resilient employees show accountability by taking responsibility for their actions, learning from mistakes, and following through on commitments.
How Can Managers Develop Accountability?
Set Clear Expectations
Good communication is essential in that you want to ensure that your employees understand exactly what their roles and responsibilities are.
You can expect your team to take more responsibility and accountability when you communicate clearly to them beforehand, exactly what is expected of them, and what precisely the task is.
Create a Feedback Culture
By creating a workplace (team environment) where giving and receiving constructive feedback is seen as the norm, it will be seen as an opportunity for growth rather than criticism and something negative.
Encourage Ownership
Try also to empower your team to take ownership of their work and any projects they are working on by giving them autonomy in decision-making throughout the process.
When employees feel ownership, they are more likely to hold themselves accountable and learn from it.
7. Self-Motivation
You will generally find that employees who are self-motivated require less supervision, and they often actually seek out the opportunity to tackle new challenges.
The difficulty as a manager can be in understanding how we can help employees find self-motivation from within and to help them build a hunger and desire, and a sense of resilience.
How Can Managers Develop Self-Motivation?
Align Their Personal Goals with the Company’s Goals
While it is not always possible to help your team align their goals with the company’s goals, very often there is crossover and ways in which you can help employees develop their own career path, while also helping the company move forward.
Career Path and Goal Setting
Remember to provide regular one-to-one meetings with the people you manage, because it is a great opportunity to go through their personal career goals and path.
- Is there any training that would help their career path that would also help the company?
- Is there mentoring you could offer the employee that would create a greater skill set in your team while also giving valuable experience to the employee?
Support employees in setting both short-term and long-term goals and consider helping them track their progress toward these goals.
8. Stress Management
Resilient employees use effective coping strategies to manage stress, stay focused, make sound decisions, and continue working effectively under pressure.
How Can Managers Develop Stress-Management Skills?
Provide Help to Reduce Stress
It can be worth being proactive and offering assistance to employees, such as by offering mindfulness training, lunchtime or online meditation sessions, or access to wellness information and guidance.
Promote Work-Life Balance
As a manager, finding the balance in how you motivate staff can be difficult, as you want, of course, to drive productivity.
Promoting work-life balance by encouraging staff to take breaks, use flexible work hours, and maintain healthy boundaries can help your team reduce stress and avoid burnout.
Train in Time Management
Helping your team improve their time management skills can really help to reduce the stress connected to heavy and busy workloads.
You might wish to provide a short workshop on time management skills to help your team prioritize work correctly.
9. Continuous Learning
Resilient individuals tend to have a natural curiosity and thirst for new knowledge, and they tend to enjoy trying to find new and creative solutions to challenges.
For you as a manager or company, helping provide this learning can help you to better equip your employees with the skills to better adapt to an ever-changing workplace.
How Can Managers Encourage Continuous Learning?
As a manager or leader, promote innovation by encouraging creative thinking and experimentation.
Also, where you can, help your team to get access to courses, workshops, or conferences that you feel will help them to expand their knowledge and skills.
For practical ideas to use in team development sessions, see these free resilience activities for workplace training.
In terms of resilience, these extra skills can help them to be better prepared for dealing with work situations and managing their work, and this can help them be stronger and avoid issues such as the feeling of imposter syndrome.
10. Collaboration
When we think in terms of the characteristics of resilient people, these employees tend to value collaboration and teamwork, as they often realize that challenges are easier to overcome when working together and seeking the input of others to find the best solutions.
Resilient employees, in other words, tend not to feel threatened or worried about knowledge sharing and helping and being helped by others in the workplace. This willingness to work with others is one of the traits of emotionally resilient people.
How Can Managers Encourage Collaboration?
Promote teamwork by creating an environment where employees feel comfortable sharing ideas, giving feedback, and asking for help.
For a look at how you can present these ideas in a workshop, see our building resilience PowerPoint examples.
If you are an HR professional, facilitator, or manager who needs to run a workplace resilience workshop, our editable resilience training materials include slides, trainer notes, activities, workbooks, and resilience-planning exercises.
FAQs
What are the most important traits of resilient employees?
The most important traits of resilient employees include adaptability, emotional intelligence, problem-solving, optimism, perseverance, accountability, self-motivation, self-awareness, flexibility, and stress management. Together, these skills help employees respond more effectively to pressure, setbacks, and change.
Can resilience be developed in the workplace?
Yes. Managers and trainers can help employees develop resilience through practical learning opportunities, reflective activities, mentoring, stress-management techniques, constructive feedback, and opportunities to build adaptability and problem-solving skills.
Conclusion
I hope you found this post on the characteristics of resilient people helpful.
Developing these traits yourself as a manager or leader, and helping those you manage to also acquire these skills, will make a more resilient team that is also more confident, effective, and happier.
Investing in resilience at both the individual and team levels is a good investment both in terms of time and financial costs, in the long term.
