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“Resilient” Isn’t the Compliment You Think It Is

The article discusses the concept of resilience, highlighting its overuse and the biases that can arise when assuming marginalized individuals possess superhuman resilience. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the unique challenges faced by these individuals and the need for leaders to provide appropriate support rather than relying on resilience as a catch-all solution. The author suggests that true resilience involves fostering an environment where individuals can thrive, rather than merely endure hardships.

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4 views

“Resilient” Isn’t the Compliment You Think It Is

The article discusses the concept of resilience, highlighting its overuse and the biases that can arise when assuming marginalized individuals possess superhuman resilience. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the unique challenges faced by these individuals and the need for leaders to provide appropriate support rather than relying on resilience as a catch-all solution. The author suggests that true resilience involves fostering an environment where individuals can thrive, rather than merely endure hardships.

Uploaded by

wasiuadesina1234
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Diversity And Inclusion

“Resilient”
Compliment Isn’t
You the
Think It Is
by Simran Jeet Singh
March 22, 2023

Illustration by Mark Harris

Summary. Resilience has become such an overused and celebrated concept that
it can become a cop-out, both for individuals... more
After an unusually difficult week at work, I shared with a friend
the impact on my team and me.

I was expecting compassion, or at least sympathy. My friend is


warm and kind, and he knows the pressures of leading an
organization. So I was surprised when he offered me neither.
“You’ve been through so much worse,” he replied. “This will be
easy for you.”

I asked what he meant, and he pointed to my life experience. He


said if I could endure daily racism and bigotry, then dealing with
the ups and downs of leadership should be a cinch in comparison.

This conversation didn’t sit well with me, and I’ve spent the past
few weeks trying to figure out why. Here’s what I’ve come up with:
While it’s true that people from marginalized communities
endure unique hardships, and while the science demonstrates
that minoritized individuals have deeper reservoirs of resilience,
it’s also true that we have cultural biases towards resilience that
have negative impacts on us and our organizations.

For instance, when leaders encourage resilience without being


attentive to the unique hardships of marginalized groups, they
might be creating conditions in which individuals don’t feel
comfortable speaking up or taking action about what they’re
enduring. This is compounded by the fact that, for many who
come from the margins, it’s common to normalize unnecessary
hardship.

A good leader will not assume that their marginalized employees


have superhuman resilience simply because of their identities.
Doing so can be another way of othering people and can result in
a failure to provide needed support.

In the exchange with my friend, we never had the opportunity to


dig into the challenges I was dealing with at work; my presumed
resilience meant that I could overcome it through grit and
perseverance alone.
Resilience has become so ubiquitous that I actually wouldn’t
mind never hearing about it again. We have resilience workshops
and workbooks; resilience shampoos and conditioners; chief
resilience officers and corporate resilience awards. Some have
even claimed that the term is so overused that it no longer carries
discernible meaning. But when it comes to diversity, equity, and
inclusion (DEI), it’s crucial that we understand these biases and
how they might influence our decision-making— and in many
cases, lead us to indecision and neglect.

Rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water (while
remembering that babies are resilient, too) here are three steps
leaders can take to adapt how we think about resilience to
account for these biases and the resulting inequities.

1.andDevelop a clear
what it isn’t. understanding of what true resilience is
In the opening conversation with my friend, he equated the
racism I experienced with the hardship I was facing at work. He
also assumed that the challenges at work must have been
comparatively minor to the challenges I overcame daily. In a way,
he was correct. I did have experience in dealing with hardship and
confidence that I would overcome this challenge.

But on the whole, he was wrong. He was assuming that the thick
skin I developed from dealing with racism meant that I could
tough this out, too. To me, the challenges of racism were more
familiar because I’d navigated them my whole life. The work
challenges were new. Moreover, I didn’t see them comparatively;
they seemed to be of entirely different orders.

Perhaps most importantly, I could see something from my


position that was hard for him to see. Because of his bias about
racism and resilience, he shut down the conversation before it
even started. He assumed he knew where I was coming from, and
that misinformation guided his response. He dismissed these
challenges when I mentioned them, which was hurtful and
unhelpful — and it demonstrated a misunderstanding of what
true resilience is.

Here’s what I said to him after reflecting on it: Resilience is not


about gritting your teeth and suffering quietly, and it’s more than
simply developing thick skin. Resilience is about our ability to
find hope and agency amid difficulty.

One way to clarify your understanding of resilience is through the


frame of surviving and thriving. Survival speaks to endurance.
Can we withstand the hardship before us and live to tell the tale?
In a corporate setting, the answer is most likely yes. Most of us
face few physical threats at our places of work.

Thriving, though, is a different matter altogether. This isn’t about


the ability to withstand the pain, but about altering the
experience altogether. Thriving is about the quality of the
workplace environment, the trust across team members, the
support systems in place. In the context of our work, the
animating force for resilience has to do with the quality of our
experience – our thriving.

Through our work with corporate leaders, we have identified four


tactics to cultivate and strengthen resilience:

Reconnect with those around you, even when you just want
to hibernate.

Reframe your problems by focusing on the options in front


of you.

Rewire how you view yourself and your capabilities.

Re-energize by doing what brings you energy, as opposed to


resting by doing nothing.
2.differently.
Consider how shared challenges impact people
The global shutdown that came with Covid-19 disproportionately
affected women. U.S. Census Bureau data shows that when the
global health crisis began, about 3.5 million mothers living with
school-aged children left their jobs to care for their children.

As the pandemic raged on, many companies began to recognize


the strain that it was putting on their employees. Companies
offered new resources, including funds to support mental health
counseling, remote workstations, and even exercise equipment.
Their approach was well-intentioned: Let’s help everyone equally
by putting aside a certain amount of money to support each
employee. What this approach fails to recognize is that different
people are affected differently by the phenomena of our world. So
when few companies offered childcare support, only a few of the
many capable mothers all across the country were able to return
to work.

A disconnected leader might see that women aren’t returning to


the workforce and shrug their shoulders. Many will assume it’s
because the women didn’t have enough commitment to stay. A
good leader would instead ask why, and then look for barriers that
might be precluding people from thriving. We’ve seen many
leaders spring to action as they’ve learned about these barriers.
According to Care.com’s “The Future of Benefits” annual report,
the number of employers offering childcare jumped from 36% of
those surveyed in 2019 to 56% in 2022.

A good leader will be attentive to these various demands and


dynamics at three different levels: personal, organizational, and
systemic. A good leader will also ask what they expect from
various groups while keeping in mind what is already on their
plates. A good leader will not assume that people from
marginalized background will have higher levels of resilience.
Ensuring that they meet people where they are prevents them
from dismissing their concerns, overlooking real problems when
they come, and neglecting to take necessary and appropriate
action.

3.real,Don’t use perceived,


systemic problems.individual resilience to deflect
I had young kids when the pandemic began, and for a long time, it
felt to me that they were vulnerable: We didn’t know a thing about
the virus, and it would be two years until they could be
vaccinated. We had no idea the social and emotional impact of
not going to school. And anytime we would discuss it, someone
would shrug their shoulders, and say “Well, kids are resilient.”

Sure, kids are resilient in a lot of ways, but this response felt
dismissive, too. Some people had the privilege of leaving the
conversation there, and some parents adopting this frame as a
kind of defense mechanism. But for many parents, myself
included, that answer just wasn’t good enough. We took every
action we could do create the right conditions to help protect
them.

I see a similar conversation playing out in corporate settings


constantly. When bad things happen, whether layoffs or takeovers
or discord among colleagues, I hear leaders shrugging their
shoulders and saying, “They’ll be fine.” I’m sure things work
themselves out in many cases, but I find myself wondering:
“Wouldn’t you rather prepare what you can rather than simply
cross your fingers and hope for the best?”

Too often, we use resilience as a mechanism to put the onus on


the individual managing the problem rather than taking
responsibility for the problem itself. At its worst, resilience is a
corporate cop-out that enables us to deflect responsibility to the
person dealing with the fallout. Worse still, when that person is
unable to manage the pressure, we blame them and say they just
weren’t resilient enough.
Sometimes, the problem is not of individual resilience but of
flawed systems breaking down. Humans have the tendency to
ascribe flaws to the people around us. A good leader knows not to
assume that the problem is no just inside your people; the
problem can be in your organization, too. I’ve worked with plenty
of leaders who will point their colleagues and say, “Betty isn’t
mentally strong enough,” or “Gautam can’t handle the pressure.”
Few leaders have the insight and self-awareness to consider their
role in setting their employees up for hardship.

The difficult truth here is that the two are not mutually exclusive.
It can be both true that the person and the system are flawed;
When resilience is required, it can illuminate the inner character
of an individual just as much as it can reveal the inner character
of our organizations and our leadership. Perhaps we can also take
these opportunities — just as we ask our employees — to reflect
on what we might reform and redress so that resilience is not
required in the first place.

Ultimately, the takeaway is this: There are biases embedded in our


thinking and behavior on resilience. Our best bet is to continue
learning and growing, so that we set our organizations and the
people we care about to not just survive, but to thrive.

SS
Dr. Simran Jeet Singh is the Executive Director
of the Aspen Institute’s Religion & Society
Program and author of the national bestselling
book, The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can
Transform Your Life.
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