March 2026

Resilience Isn’t Built Alone

Resilience has become one of the most talked-about ideas in leadership. We urge people to be more resilient, we run resilience training, and we talk about coping with change.

But resilience is often framed as if it is an individual responsibility, as if people simply need to toughen up.

My experience has been very different.

Resilience isn't something people either have or don't. It's something leaders help create.

During my time as Chief Operating Officer at Little Wings, I saw extraordinary resilience in action. Volunteer pilots, drivers and staff worked alongside children and families going through incredibly difficult circumstances.

Those days could be emotionally demanding, and yet people continued to show up. Not because they were unaffected, but because they were supported by one another.

There was a shared sense that no one carried the weight of that work alone.

That culture of care underpinned the organisation's resilience.

Creating the Conditions for Resilience

Those experiences informed my research into Joyful Leadership, which identifies six characteristics: calm, optimism, warmth, light-heartedness, achievement orientation and relationship orientation.¹

Joy does not remove difficulty, but the way we lead can influence how people experience and respond to it.

Calm can provide steadiness in uncertainty.

Optimism can help people see beyond the immediate challenge.

Warmth and relationship orientation can create connection and trust.

Achievement orientation can help people recognise progress and maintain a sense of purpose.

And even small moments of light-heartedness can remind us that joy can coexist with challenge.

Research into positive emotions provides further insight into why these moments matter. Fredrickson's broaden-and-build theory suggests that positive emotions can broaden people's thinking and help build enduring personal and social resources over time.²

Resilience Is More Than an Individual Skill

Resilience isn't built by telling people simply to be stronger.

It is built by creating environments where people can draw strength from each other.

That shifts the leadership question.

I'm often asked:

“How do I make my team more resilient?”

Perhaps the better question is:

“How do I create a culture that strengthens resilience every day?”

The answer may be found less in a one-off training program and more in the everyday practices that shape culture: being present, communicating honestly, noticing effort, celebrating progress and creating space for people to support one another.

Leaders cannot remove every challenge people will face.

But they can influence the conditions in which people face those challenges.

They can build relationships.

They can create trust.

They can bring calm when things feel uncertain.

They can remind people of what has already been achieved and help them see a way forward.

And they can create cultures where asking for support is part of how people work together, rather than something people feel they need to avoid.

We Don't Have to Do It Alone

Resilience matters enormously in today's workplaces. But perhaps we need to stop treating it solely as something individuals are responsible for developing.

Leadership has a role to play.

Culture has a role to play.

And relationships have a role to play.

Resilience, in the end, is not about enduring alone. It's about ensuring that people never have to.

Joyful Leadership © Katie McIntyre, 2026. All rights reserved.

References

1. McIntyre, K. (2025). What is Joyful Leadership? [Doctoral dissertation, University of the Sunshine Coast].

2. Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56(3), 218–226.