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Resilience through Leadership 75

acquire the skills and capacities necessary to fulfill their job responsibili-

ties and meet their performance demands. Th e effective leader would nor-

mally seek and support organizational initiatives to minimize strain that
may be the predictable result of harsh conditions, strenuous schedules,

family worries, and the like. In effect, when normal leadership is properly
executed, it should facilitate the expression of natural resilience skills or
traits (meaning-making, determination, and improvisation) among those
who follow or serve (cf. Luthans et al., 2006).

Resilience Creation
In extraordinarily adverse conditions, normal leadership may not be suf-

ficient to overcome the effects of acute, extreme stressors. Confronted by

extreme stress, the effective leader may also have to create new or additional
resilience among followers. In this situation, resilience is better construed
as a “state,” that is, as an outcome of leadership directly interacting with
the existing characteristics of followers. We hypothesize that this type of

effect will occur when a leader draws on his or her resilient characteristics

(situational assessments as identified in the Four Processes model) and uses
these cognitive and behavioral assessments to much more forcefully guide
and shape the cognitive and behavioral assessments of followers. In eff ect,
the successful leader will inspire and encourage followers to adopt his or her
(resilient) perception of the situation.
In Table 4.3, we outline how this type of resilience creation might
occur. As the table indicates, leaders can influence how their followers

react to and evaluate a stress cycle. Leader qualities and actions can aff ect

Table 4.3 Resilience as an Interaction Outcome of Leader Characteristics and
Follower Characteristics: An Illustration
Followers’ Stress Leader Leader Interactive Resilience
Episode Processes Qualities Actions Outcome Characteristics

Cognitive appraisal Credibility, Persuasive “This is a threat Determination,
insight analysis but we can meaning-making
prevail.”
Decision-making Expertise, Direction/ “Here are some Improvisation of
confi dence guidance actions we a strategy
might take.”
Performance Judgment, Direction/ “Here’s how we Improvisation of
innovation encouragement might a method
implement our
plan.”
Outcome Judgment, Persuasive “Here’s what we Determination;
fl exibility analysis need to do meaning-making
now.”

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