Redefining Resilience in Leadership with Dr. Julian Barling and Dr. Simon Rego

Host, Jennifer Knox Shanahan:

"...How can we redefine resilience for leaders using your frameworks and your research?"

Guest, Simon Rego:

"To me, this is the concept of fallibility and adaptability. Again, leaders are humans...Although you're in a leadership role, you're still a person first. And as people, we are fallible. We are going to make mistakes. We're going to do things in ways that we're not satisfied with. Life's going to throw us challenges and adversity that we're ill-equipped with, no matter how much we prepare. So, to me, resilience is not about getting things right all the time, because that's an impossible standard to achieve. Resilience is about embracing the fact that we're fallible and then finding moments of opportunity in that to grow, treating slips as learning experiences, examining, if you're willing, more out of curiosity than judgment...so that next time, if I dissect and learn from that in a way that I can derive some information and some opportunities to practice some things, my resiliency comes not by not falling, but by not being tripped up in the same way again and again and again..."

Guest, Julian Barling:

"...If I could speak to all organizations, I would implore them, stop with all this stuff about resilience...I think it leads us to believe that what we have to do is have superhero leaders. I think what we should do as organizations, is let's start talking about vulnerability and humility. And I think that what's really fascinating to me, is we're now learning that leaders who are seen as humble are actually seen as better leaders - more transformational, more ethical, more authentic and so forth. So, I think that maybe it's a product of the era that we live in, but people expect their leaders to be healthy, super healthy superheroes, never get sick...that's just, it's asking the impossible.

...Let's pay much more attention to leaders' mental health if we're serious about having a healthier workplace in general. Because if we are, leaders are going to be crucial in helping us get the message out, create the cultures and so forth...Let's focus on people and their needs and their vulnerabilities. And they'll be in an ideal position to help other people with their needs and their vulnerabilities..."

Julian Barling is a Distinguished University Professor and the Borden Chair of Leadership in Queen’s University’s Smith School of Business. He is the author of over 200 articles, book chapters, and books including Brave New Workplace: Designing Productive, Healthy, and Safe Organizations and The Science of Leadership: Lessons from Research for Organizational Leaders. Julian is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Canadian Psychological Association. To learn more, check out his new co-authored publication, CBT Workbook for Leaders. 

Simon A. Rego, PsyD, ABPP, A-CBT is Chief of Psychology at Montefiore Medical Center and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York. Dr. Rego is a licensed clinical psychologist with more than 25 years of experience in using Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and other evidence-based psychological treatments. Dr. Rego is the author of two books for professionals, Treatment Plans and Interventions for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia. He also co-authored The 10-Step Depression Relief Workbook and The CBT Workbook for Mental Health. To learn more, check out his new co-authored publication, CBT Workbook for Leaders.