High-stakes conversations, urgency, and stressful situations are present almost daily at all levels for healthcare and life sciences (LS) professionals.
Four months into 2022, many can agree that the COVID-19 pandemic taught us the importance of building resilience in ourselves in order to persevere, be agile in actions, and adapt.
Read on to find out why building resilience in healthcare and LS professionals is important to growth, and how coaching can help develop the skills needed to thrive.
Why is Resilience Important?
Building resilience, hence increasing agility, doesn’t immediately mean that professionals will never feel stressed, overwhelmed, or out of their depth ever again.
Resilience is the ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change in your environment or state of mind.
What it means is to have nurtured the tools and mindset to face changing situations, allow the ability to tackle challenges, and work through scenarios quicker. Resulting in optimal outcomes for staff, patients, and customers alike.
With the ever-changing nature of patient care and client support, change is the only constant. Hence, agility is key to moving forward once a resilient mindset is adequately achieved.
Having the ability to adapt and embrace these changes is crucial for success both individually and for the broader organization.
Resilience and agility in healthcare and LS can lead to more innovative ways of working, higher productivity and efficiency, healthy individuals, lower costs, and empowered frontline staff.
Key States & Behaviors to Build Resilience & Agility
Whilst some people demonstrate more resilience and agility faster than others, through executive coaching and leadership development, anyone can increase these traits for their own benefit.
Although not an exhaustive list, below are key mental states and behaviors to practice in order to build resilience and agility:
- Self-awareness
- Self-direction & Self- Care
- Able to handle ambiguity
- Taking responsibility for your actions
- Determination
How to Develop Resilience and Agility
Why is resilience important in healthcare? Resilience and agility are not stagnant “destinations.” The listed mental states and behaviors must be nurtured, tested, and learned from in order to apply these two concepts in changing situations. Although some may not have a natural affinity to resilience and agility, this doesn’t mean they can’t introduce certain frameworks and steps to help change this. Coaching is one of these tools that can continuously build capacity.
When it comes to putting in place actionable steps to help individuals feel more capable of handling changing situations, the following are good starting points:
- Reframing thoughts to focus on small steps towards the end goal, rather than seeing one large, daunting problem ahead.
- Acknowledging each emotion that a situation inspires, rather than blocking out or ignoring “negative” emotions. Take care of mental and emotional wellbeing.
- Focusing on the elements within a situation that can be controlled, rather than worrying about those that are out of their control.
- Opening up to new experiences and creative ideas. Be willing to see and hear different viewpoints and perspectives. Remove linear thinking.
- Utilizing relationships with others to feel comfortable seeking support and advice. You don’t have to face everything on your own.
Intentionally applying the above, and gaining insights through each situation, is a solid road to fortifying resilience and agility.
Suggested Blog: Mastering Situational Awareness in a Leadership Role
Supporting Your Career and Success in Healthcare and Life Sciences
Elev8 is dedicated to supporting healthcare and LS professionals in the development of frameworks and practices that will enable them to become effective and successful leaders.
Through our executive and leadership coaching services, individuals and teams are able to develop (or master) the skills necessary to build resilience and agility to flourish in a changing environment.
If you would like to find out more about executive coaching and leadership development, speak directly with our founder Saran Traore by getting in touch with us today.
