In today’s global business landscape, the only constant is unpredictable change. This environment is frequently described using the acronym VUCA: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. In a VUCA world, traditional, rigid hierarchical structures are breaking down. Consequently, resilience, defined as the ability to cope with challenges in a growth-oriented manner and bounce back stronger, has emerged as a core competence for leaders, teams, and entire organisations.
The Foundation: Individual Resilience and the Executive FiRE Model
To help equip leaders to navigate this complexity, the Executive FiRE Model (Factors Improving Resilience Effectiveness) is a scientifically backed framework which provides a holistic map of eight key spheres that determines one’s ability to withstand pressure and grow from it.
The model distinguishes between two core components of resilience:
- Traits: Your “raw resilience,” which includes your personality and natural wiring. While these innate traits help leaders “climb the ladder,” they are difficult to change.
- Habits: Your “learned resilience,” which consists of behaviours and strategies you can choose to “upgrade” at any time. These habits are what ensure a leader “stays on top” during intense pressure.
The eight spheres of the FiRE model range from deep internal Traits (Personality and Biography) to Habits related to Self-leadership for resilience (Attitude, Mental Agility, Energy Management, Mind-Body-Axis, Authentic Relationships and Meaning).
Resilient Leadership: From Victim to Creator
The transition to resilient leadership requires an “inside-out revolution”. This starts with a critical mental shift in Attitude: moving from a “victim” mindset (feeling at the mercy of circumstances) to a “creator” or “shaper” mindset (taking responsibility for one’s own response).
Data from research shows that while raw resilience remains stable throughout life, overall resilience actually peaks in our 50s because leaders have learned to better utilise their Biography (drawing resources from past life experiences) and their Attitude. Furthermore, top managers exhibit significantly higher levels of Mental Agility, the willingness to leave their comfort zone to adapt to market dynamics, and Meaning, finding a deep purpose that fuels them during crises.
Resilient Teams: POWER-ing Resilient Teams
Leading an organisation through a VUCA world cannot be achieved by a single individual; it requires resilient teams. The sources suggest that the team is the “perfect laboratory” for transformation. Instead of reorganising the boxes and lines on an organisation chart (an “outside-in” approach that often fails), resilient teams focus what is often “unseen” but crucial for transformational change, viz., mindsets, culture, and team dynamics.
A measure of team effectiveness is the POWER model (Leadership Choices):
- Purpose: Knowing why the work matters
- Orientation: Clarity on goals and roles
- Wavelength: High trust and connection
- Engagement: A state where everyone is “all-in”
- Resilience: The collective ability to bounce back from setbacks
The use of the POWER model helps build psychological safety, allowing team members to take risks and admit mistakes without fear, which is essential for surviving in a VUCA environment.
The Resilient Organisation: Building a Future-Ready System
At the organisational level, resilience is defined by its ability to learn, be agile to adapt and innovate, delivering on business as usual whilst co-creating the future with their stakeholders and partners. More crucially, it is also about “finding cracks in the foundation before any earthquake hits”.
A resilient organisation is built on three connected pillars:
- Inner Work: Individuals develop an agile mindset, shifting from a desire for control to a foundation of trust.
- Inclusive Culture: Diversity becomes an engine for innovation rather than a challenge to be managed.
- Adaptive Systems: Using the Executive FiRE model as a diagnostic tool to map out weak spots and systematically strengthen adaptability.
New Work Requires Inner Work
Ultimately, resilience in a VUCA world is not about avoiding the storm, but about getting the system, viz., leaders, teams, and the organisation to be ready to meet it. The transition to “new work” (agile, flexible, and fast) is impossible without “inner work”. Leaders must have the courage to look in the mirror and address their own mental models, as the team and organisation are often a direct reflection of the leader’s own resilience and mindset.
Contact us to find out how we can help you can develop resilience for you as a leader which can ripple out to your teams and your organisation starting with the Executive FiRE Model (Factors Improving Resilience Effectiveness).
