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Resilience through Leadership 69

may help to build the basis for improved resilience to the chronic stressors
of everyday life and work.

Resilience: Trait versus State

As implied by the discussion above, practical treatments of resilience oft en

reflect a dual orientation. Sometimes resilience is presented as a relatively

fixed individual characteristic, such as a personality trait. For example,
Norlander, Von Schedvin, and Archer (2005) described resilience as “thriving,”

which they related in turn to affective personality traits. They found that the

most resilient subjects were those who had both high positive affect and high

negative affect. By contrast, their least resilient subjects were characterized as
having low positive affect and high negative aff ect.

In other instances, resilience has been conceived as a dynamic, develop-
able, and interactive state (e.g., Luthans et al., 2006), the purpose of which is
to develop strategies for coping with environmental demands. It is certainly
possible, even likely, that resilience may reveal itself as a consistent person-
ality attribute (or combination of traits), as a state response to situational
demands, or as an interaction of trait and state variables. In our consideration

of how leadership may affect individual or group resilience, we consider both

trait and state aspects of the construct. The resulting implications for the role

of leadership are different, but in each case interesting and important.
If we view resilience as a trait (sometimes termed “ego-resiliency”; see

Luthar et al., 2000), we anticipate that an effective leader could serve to
encourage or reinforce behavioral expression of resiliency that is already
resident in the character of others. Success in doing so would likely depend
primarily upon the leader’s own characteristics (creativity, perceptivity,
resourcefulness, inspirational ability, etc.). Relatedly, poor leadership might
serve to discourage the expression of resilient behavior. By contrast, if we
view resilience as a state (the outcome of situational and individual factors),
then it is something that can be developed (Luthans et al., 2006). In this case,

an effective leader might be able to create or improve resilience in others,

whereas an ineffective leader might inhibit the development of resilience.

Researchers in the field of leadership have just begun to examine specifi c
questions relating to the potential positive and negative eff ects leaders can
have upon resilience in their followers. Conclusions regarding these and
related conceptually important ideas await the results of stringent empirical
tests. Britt, Davison, Bliese, and Castro (2004) have discussed resilience as

a state in terms of military leaders and their soldiers. They have observed
the leader as helpful and are currently examining the role of leadership as a
factor that may serve to “predict stress, act as a buff er against the negative

effects of stress and . . . enable variables that have been found to decrease the

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