It’s time to rethink resilience. Not the version that gets banded about in corporate speak, but the deeply human, messy, uncomfortable and healing version.
Not the ‘bounce back’, ‘power through’, or ‘toughen up’ narrative that subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) tells people to shut up, show up, and keep going.
That version of resilience is fuelling toxic workplace cultures. It’s used to justify impossible workloads, chronic under-resourcing, and the quiet tolerance of suffering. When organisations applaud someone’s ‘resilience’, it’s often code for “Look how much they can endure, look how much they can produce, look how they keep going.”
Most of us wouldn’t treat our machines the way we treat our people. We wouldn’t expect them to keep going without fuel, without maintenance, and under constant strain. But in many workplaces that is what we model, value, and normalise.
Humans do not thrive under relentless pressure; we do not remain untouched by incivility, pressure, or the suffering of fellow humans.
We break.
We burn out.
We get sick.
The Myth of Toughness
Resilience, while often seen as emotional toughness, is also a ‘dirty word’ for many employees; in many sectors, it feels like a weapon used to judge capability and commitment.
It’s easy to buy into the myth that resilience is about emotional toughness — a sort of internal armour that protects us from all harm and keeps us endlessly productive. It’s convenient, it saves us having to deal with uncomfortable emotions, messy realities, and vulnerability, it also allows us to somehow blame the sufferer – even when that is yourself.
This kind of toughness spreads, expectations become increasingly unrealistic, and people suffer, while often using disconnection, denial, or disgruntlement to mask how they really feel.
When we glorify the ‘tough it out’ version of resilience, we create environments where vulnerability is taboo, rest is seen as weakness, and people suffer in silence. Leaders model overwork, teams suppress discomfort, and feedback loops close, allowing toxic patterns to deepen.
This culture is unsustainable. And it’s costing us — in absenteeism, presenteeism, staff turnover, safety, innovation, and trust.
Most of all, it’s costing us our humanity.
Real Resilience is Not Wat You Might Believe
Resilience is not about mental toughness or doing more with less. It’s about refuelling, maintenance, and emotional agility.
Real resilience is flexibility, not rigidity; it’s pulling back, not pushing through; it’s bending, not breaking.
Think of your wellbeing a bit like your bank balance. You need to make regular deposits if you want to keep making withdrawals (refuelling), you probably need to plan for bigger items by saving and planned spending (maintenance), and you need flexibility to move things around or use a credit card for unexpected expenses (emotional agility).
Ignore it, or keep overspending, and eventually you’ll finish up overdrawn, or even bankrupt, emotionally, physically, and psychologically. At work, this looks like people quietly falling apart behind their ‘I’m fine’ masks, niggly health issues, and full-scale burnout.
Emotional Agility: The Secret Ingredient
Emotional agility enables resilience; it also reduces poor behaviour, like incivility, judgement, and blame, all of which harm workplace culture.
Emotional agility means being able to recognise and respond to what you’re feeling without being hijacked by it. It means we act, not react. We consciously choose how we show up, interact, and adapt to our circumstances and the people around us. It enables us to choose to stay aligned with our values, even in the midst of discomfort.
Being agile takes practice, self-discipline, and requires those with influence to model the behaviours themselves. It’s how we break the toughness cycle and dig into our shared humanity.
Four things help you stay agile and even grow resilience. They are:
- How you show up – being your real self, connected, sometimes vulnerable, and able to flex.
- Purpose – this is about staying aligned with why you do what you do, doubling down on the things that matter to you, and recognising the contribution you make
- Your Perceptions – being really clear about what is influencing you: your biases, expectations, and the filters you use. Ask yourself if they’re yours, or if they’ve been shaped by your environment and culture.
- How you manage your energy – this is critical because it gives or takes bandwidth for the first three. Ensure you know what (or who) impacts your emotional bank account. Identify the people, tasks, and environments that restore or deplete you, then you can define and protect your operating range.
Toughness Isn’t Strength — It’s Rigidity
Many people believe that hiding emotions, setting hard boundaries, or taking a hard line is strength. It is not. it is emotional rigidity, something that comes with a high personal and cultural price tag.
When we deny how we feel, suppress difficult emotions, or strive for relentless positivity, we actually shrink our capacity to deal with life’s inevitable bumps.
Agility is feeling in order to heal; emotion is how we process and make sense of what we experience. It can be messy, uncomfortable, and sometimes all-consuming when we are in it, but it is this processing that builds resilience, personally and collectively.
Reclaiming Resilience
Resilience grows in environments where humans are treated like humans — with all the complexity, emotion, and unpredictability that entails.
We each need to get brave enough to sit with the discomfort that brings for long enough to find a way through, and then we stand a chance of being able to treat each other with kindness and respect, while still looking after ourselves.
Resilience is not heroic; it’s human sustainability. It’s time to stop celebrating how much people can handle and start creating workplaces that honour courage, connection, and compassion.
Drawing on two decades of experience in leadership, psychology, and neuroscience, as well as her background in emergency care, Lynda created the ICARE framework for Braver Leaders. She works with leaders, in health, education & business to create cultures that heal and not hurt those within them.
Lynda has previously held senior leadership roles in the NHS and chaired the national RCN Emergency Care Association for a number of years. Lynda loves the crossover of all things ‘woowoo’ and hard science; you could say she does the mindset stuff for people who don’t like fluff.
When not working, Lynda is usually out in nature, camera in hand. She believes we can all do amazing things when we are brave enough to start!