'Proactive' Resilience versus 'Reactive' Resilience

Those of you who follow my blogs closely will know that I’m extremely passionate about one particular business trait – resilience.

Indeed, the very name of my business – The Resilience Coach – sums up the importance I place upon that key characteristic.

In a previous blog, I explained the meaning of the word ‘resilience.’

For those who missed it, here’s a quick recap.

The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) - a worldwide federation of national standards bodies – defines resilience as: 'The ability of a business to absorb and adapt in a changing environment to enable it to deliver its objectives and to survive and prosper.'

Quite simply, resilience is the ability to learn from your setbacks and mistakes.

How do you enable yourself to be receptive to Learning? Photo Jonathan Borbar Unsplash

Resilient small business owners learn how to turn mistakes into opportunities. They learn to look past the immediate setbacks and keep their eyes firmly on the long-term goal.

The details of the setback or the finer points of the mistake don’t matter. Instead, what matters is how business owners deal with those setbacks and keep moving forward.

In all workplaces there are two types of people – those who are proactive, recognising opportunities in advance and seizing them to secure the best possible outcome; and reactive, those who take a more ‘laissez-faire’ approach bumbling through each day with no real plan but caught off guard when challenges come their way.

Oxford Languages - the world’s leading dictionary publisher, with over 150 years of experience creating and delivering authoritative dictionaries globally in more than 50 languages – defines proactive as “creating or controlling a situation rather than just responding to it after it’s happened.”

Being proactive is taking charge and making things happen instead of waiting for someone else to do it or reacting to events. It's an essential skill, from work and school to relationships and personal finances.

Ability to be proactive means taking the initiative and responsibility for your own life, setting goals, and taking action to achieve them. It's about controlling your destiny and making things happen instead of letting them happen. It's a positive, can-do attitude that can make a huge difference in your life.

On the other hand, reactive is defined as “acting in response to a situation, rather than creating or controlling it.”

So, let’s now apply ‘proactive’ and ‘reactive’ to the concept of resilience.

Proactive resilience requires a holistic, company-wide risk management approach that results in sustained superior performance, maintaining a high performance and self-renewal over time through innovation and agility.

Rather than defending against the unpredictable, truly agile organisations move towards leveraging opportunities for growth. Leaders need to shift away from multi-layer reporting structures, rigid annual planning and budgeting cycles and a compliance-oriented culture.

The more leaders are personally prepared for future events (predictable and otherwise), the more they can support themselves and those around them.

On the other side of the coin there are those leaders who – whilst demonstrating key traits of resilience – do so in a reactive fashion.

There’s been no strategic planning to prepare themselves for challenges; or scanning of the marketplace horizon to see what lies ahead.

They might be able to demonstrate resilience and bounce back, but starting from a reactive position means they’re immediately on the ‘back foot,’ – already playing ‘catch-up,’ and potentially losing the opportunity to secure competitive advantage and retain their leading industry position.

This is another reason why I am not a fan of the term bounce back and promote the idea of Resilience being about “Springing Forward with Learning”. There is a risk that when you bounce back you and your organisation will go back to the “old ways” and not have adapted or learnt. To be able to Spring Forward, pausing, reenergising, reflecting and, therefore, learning needs to be part of the ingrained Culture of your Teams, your Organisation and your personal Leadership style.

How will you Spring Forward, rather than bounce back? Photo Karsten Winegeart Unsplash

Look out for the next blogs in my series on resilience – “The Importance of Proactive Resilience,” “The Benefits of Proactive Resilience,” and “How To Be Proactive In The Workplace.”

In the meantime, if you’d like to explore the subject of resilience more deeply, please contact me via Email: russell@theresiliencecoach.co.uk.