Leadership Lounge: Built to Last or Built to Learn: How Leaders Can Develop Resilience

Summary

Podcast Summary: Redefiners – Leadership Lounge: Built to Last or Built to Learn: How Leaders Can Develop Resilience
Published: September 10, 2025
Hosts: Emma Coombe, Leadership Advisor (London); Joey Burke, Leadership Advisor (Chicago); Maja Hadji Amerovic, Leadership Advisor (London)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Leadership Lounge centers on the contemporary meaning of resilience for leaders and organizations. Hosts and guests explore how resilience has shifted from mere consistency to adaptability, how leaders can cultivate resilience in themselves and their teams, and debunk the myths around what resilience looks like in high-stakes leadership. Listeners are given tangible frameworks for developing multidimensional resilience, along with actionable advice to foster resilient cultures and avoid common pitfalls.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Evolution of Resilience in Leadership

[01:10]

• Joey Burke explains that while “resilience is an age-old concept,” the expression of resilience in organizations has fundamentally changed:
  • Past: “Organizations were differentiated based on consistency... resilience, therefore, looked like discipline.”
  • Now: The external environment is evolving rapidly. “Adaptability, change, speed, these are the things that differentiate...these are the qualities needed in today's leadership.”
• Emma Coombe supports this trend with data showing that “leaders’ preparedness to face uncertain economic growth and geopolitical uncertainty is the lowest it's been since tracking began in 2021,” underlining the urgent need for new forms of resilience.

2. Defining Genuine Resilience in Leaders

[03:17]

• Maja Hadji Amerovic introduces the “three sources of intelligence” framework:

  • Mind (Cognitive): Clarity, comfort with ambiguity, orientation towards growth and learning.
  • Body (Somatic): Calm under pressure, energy management, physical awareness.
  • Heart (Emotional/Relational): Emotional authenticity, relational integrity, ability to feel a range of emotions.

  “Truly resilient leaders can draw on all three sources of intelligence... these leaders operate from a deeply integrated state where thinking, feeling, and being are harmonized.”
  — Maja Hadji Amerovic, [03:27]

• Emma reflects on how personal imbalances across these areas can become apparent and invites listeners to self-reflect:

  “Which of these sources of intelligence do you find most challenging to develop and to maintain?”
  — Emma Coombe, [05:09]

3. Developing Leader Resilience: From Time to Energy Management

[06:12]

• Maja urges leaders to shift away from “time management” to “energy management,” describing energy in four dimensions:

  • Physical (sleep, nutrition, movement)
  • Emotional (quality of relationships, support networks)
  • Mental (focus, prioritization, practices like meditation and reflection)
  • Spiritual (sense of purpose and meaning—not religion)

  “Time is finite, whereas energy... can be renewed, it can be expanded, it can be a multiplier force.”
  — Maja Hadji Amerovic, [06:12]

  • She shares a story of a CEO transformed simply by having a purpose statement “pinned to his monitor.”

4. Building Organizational Resilience

[09:21]

• Joey identifies “resilience at a systemic level” through:

  1. Stretch Assignments: Challenging leaders regularly helps “build resilience and pushes us to do what’s less comfortable.”
  2. Mentorship & Coaching: Pairing learners with those who’ve “been there before.”
  3. Psychological Safety: Environments where “leaders feel comfortable saying, ‘I don't know...’”

  “Oftentimes, resilience is depleted when we need to deploy energy figuring something out and we absolutely don't know how to do so. Having that environment... we understand that there’s a support system.”
  — Joey Burke, [09:21]

• Emma shares a memorable example of celebrating failure—a “Hall of Failures” instead of a Hall of Fame—instigated by Faiker Cbesma, CEO emeritus of Royal DSM ([10:42]).

5. Warning Signs and Recovery Strategies

[11:47]

• Maja highlights that declining resilience often shows as “shortness with people” and “snapping”; the key is “noticing the whispers before they turn into screams.”
• External feedback is critical—family, mentors, coaches:

  “She said, ‘Maja, this was my wake up call. Something needed to change, but to her it required someone pulling up the mirror for her.’”
  — Maja Hadji Amerovic, [12:14]

6. The Power of Vulnerability

[13:45]

• Joey underscores that authentic resilience requires vulnerability, not impression management:

  “Vulnerability plays a key role in creating resilience... Impression management... is the opposite side, costing leaders resilience.”
  — Joey Burke, [13:45]

  • Excessive self-monitoring drains energy and erodes a team’s capacity to solve problems.

• Emma stresses the importance of “normalizing discussions about setbacks and failures,” and reframing vulnerability as honesty and openness instead of weakness ([14:48]).

7. Resilience Misconceptions & How to Overcome Them

[15:55]

• Joey: The misconception is that resilience is purely personal—“in reality, resilience is a systemic trait that can be cultivated and grown by leaders.”
• Maja: It’s not about brute force—genuine resilience is built through regular recovery, not endless grind:

  “In sports, you can’t build strength... without rest... Performance is fueled by rest and recovery. Even my technology... said your laptop hasn’t been rebooted in seven days. Not even our technology can keep going without a reboot.”
  — Maja Hadji Amerovic, [16:09], [16:51]

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “Adaptability, change, speed, these are the things that differentiate the organizations of the present.”
  – Joey Burke, [01:18]

• “Truly resilient leaders can draw on all three sources of intelligence... where thinking, feeling, and being are harmonized.”
  – Maja Hadji Amerovic, [03:27]

• “Time is finite, whereas energy... can be renewed, it can be expanded, it can be a multiplier force.”
  – Maja Hadji Amerovic, [06:12]

• “Vulnerability plays a key role in creating resilience... Impression management... is the opposite side, costing leaders resilience.”
  – Joey Burke, [13:45]

• “If our devices need regular reboots to function optimally, how much more do we as human leaders need that renewal?”
  – Emma Coombe, [16:51]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [01:10] – Why resilience has changed: Consistency vs. adaptability
• [03:27] – Three sources of resilience intelligence: Mind, body, heart
• [06:12] – Energy management vs. time management: Four energy dimensions
• [09:21] – Organizational culture: Stretch, mentoring, psychological safety
• [10:42] – Hall of Failures example: Celebrating learning from setback
• [11:47] – Warning signs: Declining self-awareness, the value of feedback
• [13:45] – Vulnerability vs. impression management in leadership resilience
• [15:55] – Misconceptions: Personal trait vs. systemic trait; Brute force myth
• [16:51] – The “reboot” metaphor for rest and true resilience

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Recap & Takeaways

• Resilience for leaders is no longer about stoic consistency but active adaptation, learning agility, and integrated energy management.
• Leaders should balance cognitive, somatic, and emotional capacities, intentionally manage energy across physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual lines.
• Organizations must provide stretch assignments, mentoring, and psychological safety to build resilient cultures.
• Vulnerability isn’t weakness—it’s a necessary condition for authentic resilience and collaborative problem-solving.
• Biggest myths: Resilience is not just about personal endurance; it is systemic and needs regular rest and renewal.

Listeners are encouraged to audit their own and their organizations’ approaches to resilience and implement these multidimensional strategies for stronger, more adaptive leadership.

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(This summary excludes advertisement, intro, and non-content sections for clarity.)

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Leadership Lounge, a place to kick back and listen as our experts dissect some of the biggest questions leaders face today. I'm Emma Coombe, leadership advisor in our London office. In today's episode, we're discussing resilience, the crucial ability to bounce back from setbacks and thrive under pressure. So what separates the leaders who weather the storm from those who get swept away? Today, we're exploring what genuine resilience looks like in practice, whether it can be developed, and how leaders can build resilient cultures across their entire organization. But before we dive in, remember to share any burning questions you want our experts to answer by emailing redefinersussellreynolds.com and if you enjoy listening to our episodes, leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. So let's dive in. First up, we'd like to welcome Joey Burke, Leadership advisor at Russell Reynolds, Associate Chicago office. Joey, welcome to the Lounge.

[B]

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here, Joey.

[A]

Let's start with the fundamentals. Why is resilience such an important trait for leaders today? And how has this evolved over time?

[B]

Resilience is an age old concept. What has changed over time is organizational dynamics and therefore the qualities of resilience that are needed. For example, organizations in the past were differentiated based on consistency. An organization's ability to show up the same way every single day, year in and year out, is what allowed them to differentiate themselves in the market. Resilience, therefore looked like discipline and looked like showing up with that consistency to enable the organization to perform. Today's environment is completely different. The external environment is moving so quickly. The external pressures are impacting organizations so rapidly that consistency doesn't work anymore. Adaptability, change, speed, these are the things that differentiate the organizations of the present. These are the qualities that are needed in today's leadership that move us forward.

[A]

That shift from consistency to adaptability in response to the speed of change is really interesting and arguably, I think, much harder. Nowadays, knowing what every day might require of you in a really consistent way, in many ways is easier to prepare for and to build resilience around. If each day can be different, it kind of demands even more of oneself. So I think it's super interesting. And actually what we're seeing in our Global Leadership Monitor research is that leaders aren't effectively adapting to today's threats. Leaders preparedness to face uncertain economic growth and geopolitical uncertainty is the lowest it's been since we began tracking this data in 2021. And a recent McKinsey research report also found that 60% of board members believe their company isn't ready for the next big major event. We'd now like to welcome Maja Hadji Amerovic, leadership advisor in Russell Reynolds Associates, London office, to the lounge. Maja, welcome to the leadership lounge.

[C]

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here, Emma.

[A]

So, Maya, when you're working with leaders, what patterns or leadership behaviors reveal that a leader has genuine resilience?

[C]

Great question. I often like to talk to leaders about three sources of intelligence that we have available to us as human beings. Mind, which is that cognitive one that we often think of when we think of intelligence. Then there's our whole bodies. That's the somatic intelligence, and our heart, which is emotional and relational intelligence. And what we find is that truly resilient leaders can draw on all three sources of intelligence relatively equally. These leaders operate from a deeply integrated state where three thinking, feeling, and being are harmonized. So what does this look like? On the mental front, they have clarity of thought and perspective. They're quite comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty. But most of all, it's their orientation towards growth and learning. They're obsessed with it. When they fail, it's just an opportunity to learn. On the body front, that somatic intelligence, they're calm under pressure. They can feel into their own physiology and influence it, and they can tune into the states of people around them, and they proactively manage their energy for the long term. They know this is a marathon and not a sprint. And on that heart intelligence, that relational, emotional one, they can feel all their emotions, not just the good ones, which means they can connect authentically with care, build relationships, and they can make choices that are aligned with their integrity, regardless of if it's hard or not.

[A]

I think this. This framework of three sources of intelligence is absolutely fascinating, Maya. I've never actually had it explained in this way before, and this somatic word is new to me, but it makes perfect sense. And speaking from my own experience, I find that actually in terms of focusing and that mental intelligence, I can kind of focus probably for unhealthy lengths of time. I get so wrapped into whatever I'm doing. And then the impact of that on my somatic intelligence is that my body will actually tell me that I'm not moving enough and that things are thrown off balance. On the emotional, relational, the heart intelligence, I think I feel very blessed to have wonderful family and friends supporting me. So for me, of the three, to really watch out for and to make sure I keep in balance is that somatic or that body? Intelligence? I'd be curious to hear from our listeners too. Which of these sources of intelligence do you find most challenging to develop and to maintain? MAYA for leaders who recognise they need to build greater resilience, where should they start? What are some of the most effective development strategies?

[C]

So the first thing is to stop thinking about time management and start thinking about energy management. Time is finite, whereas energy, it can be renewed, it can be expanded, it can be a multiplier force. And it's helpful to think of energy in four dimensions. There's the physical, that's about quantity. There's the emotional, which is about quality. There's mental energy, that's about focus. And spiritual energy, which is about your purpose. And so the first thing is to audit yourself across these four dimensions of energy and proactively manage that for yourself day to day. So what could that look like? For example, on the physical front, it's basics. Do you sleep enough? Are you eating well? Do you move your body regularly? On the emotional, it's all about relationships, quality of your relationships. Resilient leaders, they don't go at it alone. They've built sophisticated support networks across their personal life. Mentors, coaches, advisors, and they lean on those networks actively on the mental, again, that's about focus. Are you prioritizing your days or do you let the winds of the day blow you around? I know a lot of leaders have taken up meditation recently as a way to train that muscle of focus. Another fantastic practice is reflection. And then on spiritual, this isn't about religion. What kind of a leader do you want to be? What's the change you want to impact on the world? I recently worked with a CEO to help him do just that. And our first coaching call a week later, he was buzzing. He could not believe how much he got from this one little sentence that was pinned to his monitor where every single word resonated with him deeply and it was like a north star fueling his day to day leadership, his activities giving him resilience to handle the punches of the days and allowing him to show up with intention and with authenticity. He couldn't believe that he had been operating all these years without having that clarified for himself.

[A]

I love that image of having your purpose statement right there on your monitor. And purpose really is that anchor that keeps you grounded when everything else feels chaotic. It's remarkable how something so simple can be so transformative. And of course I fully recognize that purpose will evolve during leaders careers as you become more financially secure, financially Independent, you can have the privilege of thinking more broadly around what you want to focus on and what you want your your purpose to be, how you can make a lasting impact on your sector through innovation or regulation, or through developing the next generation of talent. And these kinds of conversations and this mindset is so inspiring to the people around you. Joey Building on Maya's insights about individual resilience, how can CEOs or other senior leaders create cultures that build resilience across their leadership pipeline, not just at the C suite level.

[B]

When we think about building resilience at a systemic level, there's three key ways with which to do this that come to mind for me. Number one is challenging and stretch assignments. When one thinks about exercising physically or when one thinks about learning a new skill. Oftentimes being that growth mentality and being in that state of constantly stretching and growing is that thing that builds resilience and pushes us to do what's less comfortable. Number two is mentorship programs or coaching programs, apprenticeship programs. Organizations call them different type things. What's most important is to pair somebody up who's learning with somebody who's been there before. And then number three is building that psychological safety or crafting an environment where leaders feel comfortable saying, I don't know the answer to this, or this is something that I need help with, or this is something that I don't understand. Oftentimes resilience is depleted when we need to deploy energy. Figuring something out and we absolutely don't know how to do so. Having that environment, the answer might not be given to us, but we understand that there's a support system and there's safety. Being able to ask for that support, that's what's going to help encourage resilience at that system level.

[A]

That third point about psychological safety is crucial. Joey I found that the most resilient organizations are those that normalize discussions about setbacks and failures that actually can almost celebrate them as collective learning experiences. When leaders can openly share what went wrong and the lessons they learned. These are so valuable and they should be a source of learning rather than of shame. It makes me think of an earlier Redefiners episode with Faiker Cbesma, CEO emeritus of Royal dsm, where he shared that when projects went wrong or there were issues with them, he instilled a hall of failures instead of a hall of Fame and buried the projects with some music and a coffin. I remember thinking that I loved that approach to failure. And I think with everything going on with AI right now, resilient organizations have to be able to allow their leaders to test and fail to try new things, to fail fast. So Maya, turning back to you, what are some specific warning signs that a leader's resilience is waning and what steps can they take to recover?

[C]

A lot of it comes down to self awareness and energy management. When we're drained, when we're exhausted, we're not our best selves, we're short with people, we snap. We'll rarely take the high road in an argument. The important thing is to notice the whispers before they turn into screams, to act early on signals before it turns into a performance cross crisis or full blown burnout. And family and mentors and coaches can often be really helpful in this as well as a kind of guide post or a signal. I recently had a leader who said, you know, at dinner time my husband pulled me up and he said, honey, I love you but you haven't been yourself in months and it's having an impact on me and it's having an impact on the kids. And she said, maya, this was my wake up call. Something needed to change, but to her it required someone pulling up the mirror for her.

[A]

That's such a powerful reminder, Maya, and I'm sure many of us have had these moments, whether from a spouse, a close colleague or a coach, where someone says, you're not quite yourself lately. It takes courage to hear that feedback and to be honest, to be somebody that looks willing to receive it. All of this is a reminder of how important it is to give yourself a break, whether it's a micro break during a long day or a proper holiday where you allow yourself to switch off. For me personally, of course, I've had times where I've felt completely strung out and actually sharing what's happened, sharing experiences, and then oftentimes finding that if it's a professional situation colleagues have faced, exactly the same is an extraordinary source of strength when you realise that you're not going on a path alone and you're not the only one to have had these, these feelings and these setbacks. So remembering to share, to be open, to be vulnerable, makes a world of difference. Joey, what role does vulnerability play in building authentic leadership? Resilience?

[B]

It's a great question. Vulnerability plays a key role in creating resilience in many ways. If vulnerability sits on one side of creating resilience, then impression management is its antithesis and sits on the opposite side of costing leaders resilience. For example, I was speaking with the CEO last week of an organization that we work closely with, whose Number one concern is the amount of impression management going on on her team and the amount of resilience that that is costing her team. They are completely out of energy. They are not solving the problems that the organization is facing. Instead, they're managing how they're perceived on the team. And so the piece that we were speaking about extensively with this CEO is how can we build more psychological safety on the team? How can we build greater vulnerability on the team to help shift the individuals away from thinking about how they're going to be perceived and instead focused on how can they solve the organization's problems?

[A]

Exactly right, Joey. The most resilient leaders I've worked with are certainly ones that present both sides of a picture. That they're really honest about how they did things, also that it was the team, not just them, but also what went wrong and what was hard along the way. And I think this authentic approach builds trust, it encourages innovation, people taking appropriate risks, and it creates more organizational resilience because it doesn't depend solely on one person having all the answers. And I do think also that we have to be careful not to overplay this word vulnerability, because it does instinctively link to some kind of weakness. Whereas really what we're talking about is just being honest and open, making sure that the organization truly listens, it's able to accept bad news as well as good news, and that there's no posturing, there's no impression management. Now onto our final question in the lounge today, and I'd like you both to chime in. Maya, Joey, what do you think is the biggest misconception leaders have about building resilience and how can they overcome it? Joey, over to you first.

[B]

The biggest misconception I've seen around resilience is that it's a personal trait only in reality. Resilience is a systemic trait that can be cultivated and grown and shaped by leaders within the organization.

[A]

Very true, Joey. And what about you, Maya?

[C]

The biggest misconception is that it's all about brute force, hard work and toughing it out couldn't be further from the truth. We all know that in sports you can't build strength and you can't build endurance without rest, without rest days. And we're not talking about a once a year rest day. I mean, it has to be built into your regular training schedule and work. Work is no different. Performance is fueled by rest and recovery. Even my technology. The other day I got a pop up on my laptop that said your laptop hasn't been rebooted in seven days. Not even our technology can keep going without a reboot.

[A]

What a perfect metaphor, Maya. If our devices need regular reboots to function optimally, how much more do we as human leaders need that renewal? True resilience isn't about grinding through, it's about building sustainable practices that allow us to show up as our best selves consistently, especially when the stakes are highest. So our time in the lounge today has come to an end. In 30 seconds, this is what we've learned. Resilience has evolved from being about consistency to being about adaptability and learning agility. In today's fast changing world, true resilience integrates mind, body and heart intelligence and requires managing energy across different dimensions. Building organizational resilience requires stretch assignments, mentoring relationships and psychological safety where it's okay to get things wrong, and that is valued more than impression management. The biggest misconception about resilience is that it's purely personal and about toughing it out, when in reality it's systemic and requires strategic rest and recovery. Consider how you can apply these insights in your own organization and create a more resilient, adaptive leadership culture. We really hope you enjoyed this episode. If you have any topics or burning questions you'd like us to cover in future episodes of Leadership Lounge, then get in touch by emailing us on redefinersrusslernolds.com until next time. Goodbye.