23 What Is Resilient Leadership? 3 Keys for Women Leaders Ready to Lead Well

What Is Resilient Leadership? 3 Keys for Women Leaders Ready to Lead Well

What does it really mean to be a resilient leader?
It’s not about powering through; it’s about staying steady, purposeful, and grounded when life and leadership get messy.

In this episode of Joyfully Unstoppable, leadership coach and Women Lead Well founder Becky Hamm unpacks the research of psychologist Suzanne Kobasa and explores how the three pillars of resilience -- Commitment, Control, and Challenge -- help women lead with clarity, confidence, and joy.

You’ll learn:
 ✨ How to stay connected to what truly matters (Commitment)
 ✨ How to focus your energy on what you can influence (Control)
 ✨ How to reframe change as growth (Challenge)
 ✨ Practical ways to cultivate calm, courage, and purpose in your daily leadership

Whether you’re navigating change, carrying a heavy workload, or simply want to lead with more peace and confidence, this episode will help you strengthen your inner foundation and lead well—without losing yourself in the process.

🎧 Tune in, take a deep breath, and remember: resilience isn’t just surviving; it’s growing stronger, wiser, and more joyful through every season of leadership.

Listen now and subscribe for more conversations on joyful, sustainable, and authentic leadership.

#WomenInLeadership #ResilientLeadership #WomenLeaders #PodcastForWomen #JoyfullyUnstoppable #LeadershipDevelopment #WomenLeadWell

Joyfully Unstoppable—helping women reconnect with what matters most.

Subscribe so you never miss an episode!

✨ Let’s stay connected
Want more support as you lead with clarity, confidence, and joy? Here’s how we can keep growing together:

👩🏽‍🤝‍👩🏾 Join the Women Lead Well Community on Facebook!
💻 Schedule your Burnout Recovery Mentorship Call!
🌿 Meet Becky – Get to know the heart behind the mic
💼 Coaching for Women Leaders – Ready for personalized support? Explore 1:1 coaching
📚 Free Leadership Resources – Practical tools to help you lead (and live) well
🏡 Explore Women Lead Well – Learn more about Women Lead Well and everything we offer

Transcript

0:05

Welcome to Joyfully Unstoppable, the podcast for women who are ready to lead boldly, live lightly and reclaim their joy. Whether you're leading a team, a classroom, a boardroom. Or your own big, beautiful life. I am so glad you found us. I'm your host, Becky Ham leadership coach, speaker and founder of Women Lead Well. After years of high level leadership, I discovered that success doesn't have to come at the cost of your peace, your values, or your wellbeing. Each week, we'll explore what it means to lead joyfully, sustainably, and authentically, even in a world that tells you to hustle harder. Improve your worth. You carry a lot. Let's help it feel lighter. Okay, so today I want us to talk about what it means to be a resilient leader. The leader who is strong, not hard, who bends without breaking, who finds steadiness, and even joy in the midst of challenge. Some of you may know before I founded Women Lead Well, I spent over 15 years working with the Marine Corps and I was an expert in the area of leadership and ethics. And this topic of resilience was vital to ensuring that our military were both morally and emotionally prepared to make incredibly difficult decisions under immense stress. And while I hope that nobody listening to this podcast ever faces truly extreme circumstances, anyone in a leadership role, if you're leading a corporation or leading your very own life, we all face difficult challenges, adversity, hardship. So let's talk about it. What has been so helpful for me, uh, is the work of psychologist Suzanne Kasa. She spent years studying why some people grow stronger through stress. While others collapse under it. And she found that resilient people share three traits, three ways of seeing the world of interacting with the world, and that they form this backbone of what she has termed psychological hardiness. And those three traits are commitment, control, and challenge. And I wanna tell you those three words, those concepts changed the way I think about leadership, but they mean they fundamentally changed the way I live my own life. and they form the heart of what I have come to call resilient leadership. And that is when you lead with purpose agency curiosity. Especially when life feels uncertain. And so today I want us just to walk through each of those traits like what is commitment? How do you know it, when you see it, how do you build it, right? What is co control? What is challenge? I'll share where they show up in your leadership and that actual things that you can do in your life that aren't hard to strengthen them. Why? Because life gets hard. Life gets difficult, work gets messy. And the better grounded you are, the more you feel in control of the things you actually control. The more committed you are to things that give you meaning, the more you view life as challenge rather than threat, like the better it's gonna go for you and the happier you're gonna be while you face the challenge. So let's do like, why not, right? Why wouldn't you build your resilience? And so let's start with this resilience. Is not just about toughness by itself, right? Like to be resilient is not just to be tough. Resilience is your ability to create meaning in the midst of disruption. So for you to find meaning, value, worth in the middle of the yuck. When I first began teaching moral resilience, I described it as the courage to find purpose, even when life feels disordered or painful. Resilient leaders are the ones who can interpret hardship as part of a larger story of growth, right? They keep that big picture, that arc of their lives, of their careers in mind when things go poorly for them. And they can do that because they understand who they are, they understand what matters most, and that clarity studies them when the world gets chaotic. And so like if you are leading a team, a classroom, a company, a family, wondering how to stay strong without losing your spark here, like pay attention today. This is your conversation. And the first pillar that I want us to talk about is commitment. And so commitment is the choice to remain deeply engaged with life, to invest in what gives your work and relationships, meaning Kobasa found that people who stay committed experience a sense of purpose that anchors them through adversity. And so as we are talking about commitment, I think it's also helpful to talk about the opposite, right? So you can either be committed. Or the opposite of commitment is alienation where you feel like you are not connected to purpose, you are not connected to, um, the broader story of life. And I've seen both of these. I think you have to, now that you know it, you're gonna start seeing it everywhere. You see both the commitment and the alienation in every sphere of leadership. When stress comes, when pressure builds, there are a lot of people who instinctively pull back to protect themselves. Natural instinct. But resilience calls for connection, right? You're not just committed to ideas and principles. You are. You will be. Sorry. I'm like finger wagon. For those you who are watching me on YouTube, Resilience isn't just about being committed to these ideals and these principles, it's also about being committed to other people, right? Humans, we are inherently social beings, and so to be resilient you gotta be connected. And so commitment, even in stressful moments when many people's default is to isolate and alienate commitment asks you to stay present in your work. So stay connected to your values and to stay connected to your people. Research shows us the impact of connection on human wellbeing, right? Like this isn't just a hot take, like this is grounded in decades of research that humans who feel deep commitment and connection to others, they live longer, have less anxiety, suffer less cognitive decline with age than those of us who isolate and disengage. Commitment's real like it's a big deal. It does not mean overextending yourself or saying yes to every request, right? That's not, I don't mean to overcommit. What commitment is, is just orienting your time and energy around what you find to be truly worthwhile. What is truly meaningful to you? So what could this mean for you? How might you build commitment in your life? Revisit what you love about your work. Protect the parts that still light you up. Make time for the things that light you up in your calendar. That connection renews your strength far more effectively than any self-discipline plan ever could. The second pillar is control. Kaso defines control as the belief that you can influence the course of your experience. and I wanna be clear here, it is not about managing every detail. Or exerting control over things that you don't actually control. But it's recognizing that your actions and choices always matter. And the contrast to control is powerlessness, That things are happening to you, but you can't exert any influence either over them or over how you are responding to them. And so when people believe that they have some influence, they have some control. We approach stress differently, We respond to a situation rather than react to it. And so in leadership, this sense of agency, it keeps you from drifting into resignation, When circumstances feel bigger than you, it keeps you from feeling overwhelmed. It's recognizing and accepting that you can't decide every outcome. That's not feasible. But you can decide how you're going to meet the moment, and you can choose to meet the moment, whatever it is, with curiosity, clarity, and courage. So here are a few ways to practice control in a healthy way. One, clarify your circle of influence. Every morning when you get up, identify a few things that are truly yours to influence today. Not things that you wish you could influence or wanna be able to influence or hope you can, but like actually what is in your control today? Oftentimes, it's yourself. Your own behavior, Your own thoughts, your own actions. Focus there and just let go of the rest, If you can't change it, just let it go Second. Shift your language, and this is a big one. I had to train myself on this. And so what I mean here, for example, is replace the, I have to do whatever with, I choose to do whatever, or I get to do whatever it, it feels semantic, but it's not, it is a very clear signal that you're acting from intention, That you are in charge of you. Because Grown friend, grown woman, you are in charge of You own it. Own it. And then three, ground yourself. You know the last week's e episode was on nervous system regulation. When anxiety spikes, take a breath, remind yourself. I am capable. I choose how I respond. Here, I can choose my next step. You know, my favorite. I am safe in this moment. I am safe. And then when I start to like acknowledge that yes I am safe options, open up when we feel powerless. Options, kind of like our brain shuts down on options. We get super narrow tunnel vision. And so when you can come back to that place of control and safety in the body, it opens up all these opportunities that you probably hadn't been paying attention to when you were stressed out and feeling powerless. And so this is helpful for resilience because when you do things like that, you remind yourself of your agency. So think of control. As discernment that you are not grasping for certainty. You are deciding where your energy will make the greatest difference, and you are the boss of you, right? Your energy should serve you. There's this great quote by Viktor Frankl that I love, uh, where he said that forces beyond your control can, um, take away everything except one thing. Your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. So ask yourself, where am I spending energy on things beyond my reach, things I don't actually control, and where can I put my energy to actually influence my life? And then you do that. Now, third pillar is challenge. Again, this, this, I, I did a lot of learning on the challenge. I was always committed. I struggled some with control and I've struggled some with challenge. So these are growth areas for me in my own life, but what a difference it has made as I have leaned into what I control and leaned into my understanding of challenge. So challenge is mindset, and it's a mindset that treats change as a chance to learn. Rather than a reason to fear. And so challenge stands opposite of threat. So when something you don't want happens to you, you can see a challenge or you can see a threat. You can interpret it as challenge or interpret it as threatening. And this can be a hard one. Why? Well, because. Many of us were not raised with a growth mindset, and maybe I should do an episode on the growth mindset. I feel like people are pretty familiar with that now. Um, but, but shoot me a dm, uh, over on Instagram and let me know if, if it would be helpful to have an episode on a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. But a lot of us who are a little bit older in our forties and fifties, a lot of us were raised with a fixed mindset. And that means that we equate success with. value, we equate stability with success, So those two things, we wanna be successful. And if we're not successful, then that's a failure. And then also because we equate success and stability together. When we don't feel successful, we feel unstable, And, and humans tend to not like that, Going back to the brain like, we got one job, keep us alive, instability, threatening. Okay, like that. That's a pretty evolutionarily sound response that we're having, except that growth nearly always arrives through disruption. Growth is almost always unsettling. And so Kasa found that people who approach life as a series of challenges tend to stay optimistic and adaptable. They're just problem solving, oh, this new thing, okay, let's solve this problem. Oh, this new thing. Oh, let's solve this problem. Right? They anticipate change and embrace it instead of resisting it. And so even when things are going badly, we lose our job. We get passed over for a promotion. Our division faces significant budget cuts. Whatever we can choose, or like I did, we can train ourselves to see that adversity as opportunity rather than threat. And here's the beauty, if we do that, we're better able to create a positive outcome, right? Things might not go the way that we wanted, but they can still end up in a good place. And so when a setback hits failed project, tough review, personal disappointment, you can reframe that experience as a learning opportunity and you can ask yourself, what might this be teaching me? What opportunity is hiding here? I would tell my team all the time, we went through some difficult periods of budget cuts and just turmoil. And I would say, I would say at every meeting. Yes, this is painful. Yes, this is difficult. There is opportunity here. What opportunity are we not seeing that is actually present in this situation? That's challenge, so how do you get there? Challenge thrives on curiosity, and so instead of saying oh, why me when something bad happens, you might try and ask yourself. Oh, that sucks. What is this preparing me for? How do I grow from here? what's the opportunity here? Those questions turn the discouragement into discovery, but you've gotta ask the questions, You've got to be curious. So I've already talked as we went through commitment, control challenge. I, I gave like quick examples of what you can do to strengthen each of those qualities. But let's, let's dig in and let's talk about how do you actually grow commitment, control challenge in your daily life. Because again, I'm telling you, it is life changing. You will, you will thank me so. Resilience isn't like you take a class and then you check, you've got the certification and you check the box and woo hoo, you're done. No, resilience is something that you build slowly and you do it through habits of reflection and perspective. And unfortunately, right, you don't get resilient when everything goes awesome, you build your resilience through adversity. And let me say just quickly here, um. It is true and research supports this, that certain people are born with a higher natural level of resilience than others. And there are plenty of reasons for why this mis might be so formative experiences, um, kind of generational trauma and just like everyone's wired a little bit different right now. Here's the good news. Whatever level of resilience you're at, you can strengthen it. It is not the case that if you lack commitment today and control and challenge, and that you identify with alienation, hopelessness, and threat, that like that's your fate and you're just gonna spend the rest of your life there. That ain't how it works. You can condition your mind and your body to respond with greater resilience. You just have to learn it, Researchers call this practice transformational coping. The ability to reinterpret stressful experiences in ways that expand our understanding and capability. And so here's some things that you can do to support transformational coping. This is how you build that resilience within you first situational reconstruction. Fancy words. I'm just taking it from the research. And so you wanna revisit difficult experiences to gain new insight. That's where you ask yourself, what can I learn? Not what should I have done differently? This isn't Monday morning quarterbacking. This is how do I grow from this? What is the opportunity here? What can I learn from this that brings value to me? Second, something we talk about all the time on the podcast. I'm telling you, commitment control, challenge. This work has deeply informed the work I do with my clients at Women Lead Well. So thing number two for transformational coping is somatic awareness. Pay attention to your body. Maybe your shoulders are tight. Maybe they're up, right? Maybe you've got that shallow breathing where you don't get a full breath in. Maybe you've clenched your jaw. Those are clear signs that your nervous system is dysregulated, that your body does not feel safe. Listen to it, respond. Take time to regulate as you are asking those questions as you are trying to find what you do control in a situation. And then the third is what I have termed belligerent self-improvement, turn reflection into action. By identifying one way you can grow stronger from that experience, whatever it is, and I call it belligerent self-improvement because you gotta fight for it, right? There are times when, when something bad has happened and you feel bad, feel your feelings, always feel your feelings, and then take that next step and say, I'm gonna make something good out of this. That is your force of your will, right? I'm calling it belligerent because like you are making it happen. You control how you react to that moment, and so you find some good in it for you. Belligerent self-improvement. Now these practices mirror the ACE model that I teach in my programs. You've got awareness, capacity, and embodiment. Awareness helps you to notice your patterns and the things that trigger that nervous system dysregulation. Capacity building builds the skills that you need to respond instead of react, and then embodiment allows you to lead from a centered, grounded presence that empowers those around you, that you become the woman who is resilient. You're not trying anymore like you are, and so resilience develops as you move through that cycle. Again, and again and again. So every time you face adversity, every time you frame something as a challenge instead of a threat, every time you stay committed to your values, instead of walking away from them and expediency, your resilience grows. And now one of the deepest lessons, most important things that I have learned from years of studying resilience. Is that it is profoundly human. It is part of our DNA. It is in us. Resilience is not about avoiding hardship. Because like that ain't possible. Resilience is about allowing difficulties when they come to deepen our compassion, Because it's a challenge, not a threat to deepen our courage because we're committed, because we identify where we have control. They clarify what is most important to us in our lives and, and as we look at the world around us. So I gave this talk to chaplains, one time. It was probably a decade ago. It's been a minute. And I said, people don't need abstract theology. They need a connection that rebuilds their faith in the presence of good in the world and in themselves as agents of that. Good. I'm gonna tell you, that applies to leadership as much as ministry. Your team does not need a flawless leader. They want someone. They need someone who is present, who is steady, who is like real, like who is an actual human. Someone who can say this is hard and still choose integrity. Someone who leads with empathy while holding high standards. Now, if you wanna strengthen your resilience this week, try this. Reconnect with purpose. At the start of each day, ask yourself what matters most, what is the most important, the meaning making? What's the most important thing for today? Write it down where you can see it. I'm the queen of sticky notes. But you do what works for you. Let that commitment to what is important. Steer your choices, put it somewhere your eyeballs fall so you can keep looking at it. Think two, exercise. That agency, you do have control. So every evening I want you to write down one decision that reflected your values, one choice that you made, that that reflects your owning, those things that are in your control. When you recognize that, it just reinforces your sense of control. So I said sticky notes for the things to be in front of me. I used the journal app, my phone sitting over there for those, watching my on YouTube. I used the journal app on my iPhone to, to note that at night I do three things I'm grateful for. And then like the, what was the, how did I own my day? How did I own my life today? And then next I talked about the power of curiosity every day. Welcome. Curiosity, embody curiosity without judgment. When something frustrating comes up, pause and ask yourself, you know, do the deep breath first. What could this situation be teaching me? What is the opportunity here? Not any, what could this be teaching me because I'm messed up and I'm not good. No, no judgment. But what is the opportunity in this moment? That question like transforms our defensiveness into openness. And again, when you do that, that's when the possibilities really pop up. and so as we wrap up here, remember, resilience is not about never stumbling or never having a bad day. We're gonna have bad days and we're gonna stumble. Resilience. Is about having that bad day and choosing to commit to what is meaningful to you. Recognizing what you can control, releasing what you can't, and embracing the challenges that are a natural part of life. Belligerent self-improvement. You might still spiral. We're human, but as your resilience grows, you can stop that spiral sooner and you can get back to the business of building the life you deserve. Now, if this episode spoke to you, I would love for you to share it with a friend who's running on empty. We need more women leading from alignment, not adrenaline. And don't forget to like and subscribe. You can also grab one of our free resources like the Mental Load Reset or the Values Clarification exercise@womenleadwell.net and LinkedIn, the show notes below. Remember, joyful, sustainable, and authentic leadership is possible. And you deserve to enjoy every minute of it. Until next time, I'm Becky Ham, and this is joyfully unstoppable.