Is Resilience the Missing Ingredient in Organisational Culture?
In today’s workplaces, performance alone is no longer enough. Leaders and teams need the psychological foundations that make performance sustainable. The 2024 ICF Global Coaching Study reinforces what I see every day in my coaching practice:
Leaders who receive coaching report greater resilience and lower burnout.
From a positive psychology coaching perspective, this makes perfect sense. Resilience isn’t about pushing harder or working longer hours, it’s about building the inner resources that allow people to adapt, recover, and thrive. These resources are cognitive (the way we frame challenges), emotional (how we regulate pressure and stress), and relational (how we connect with others in times of uncertainty).
When I work with leaders, resilience shows up in simple but powerful ways:
Recognising and applying strengths under pressure
Reframing setbacks so they become learning
Creating micro-habits of recovery that restore energy and perspective
Building environments of psychological safety where teams can speak up, take risks, and innovate
The ripple effect is profound. When leaders strengthen their own resilience, they model healthier behaviours for their teams. This shifts culture. Teams become more engaged, more connected, and more willing to collaborate. Over time, resilience evolves from an individual trait into an organisational advantage.
This is reflected in wider research. McKinsey & Company’s 2024 report on resilient workforces found that the most effective leaders in uncertainty share four traits: they define a clear sense of purpose, create psychological safety, model resilience, and foster collective learning. These are cultural multipliers, not just leadership skills. McKinsey’s earlier work also showed the financial case: resilient organisations outperformed their peers during downturns, with EBITDA rising by 10% while less resilient companies declined by 15%.
Harvard Business Publishing echoes this, finding that high-performing organisations consistently emphasise resilience, optimism, self-awareness, and empathy as leadership “superpowers.” These qualities sustain leaders personally, but more importantly, they shape positive organisational cultures.
The academic evidence tells the same story. Amy Edmondson’s decades of research into psychological safety has shown that when leaders create environments of trust and openness, teams are more innovative, collaborative, and effective. Without psychological safety, resilience remains personal. With it, resilience becomes collective and cultural.
This is why resilience is the missing ingredient in so many organisations today. It is not simply about helping individual leaders “cope.” It is about enabling cultures where people and performance grow together.
As The Psyc Edge Coach, my aim is to help leaders strengthen their resilience and then cascade it across their teams, so organisations don’t just survive disruption, they flourish through it. When resilience is embedded into culture, well-being and performance stop competing. They reinforce each other. And that’s the future of work.
References
International Coaching Federation. (2024). Global Coaching Study
McKinsey & Company. (2024). Developing a Resilient, Adaptable Workforce for an Uncertain Future
McKinsey & Company. (2022). Raising the Resilience of Your Organization
Harvard Business Publishing. (2022). Leadership Reframed for the Workplace of the Future
Edmondson, A. (2019). The Fearless Organization