Building Resilience in Teams

You won’t always spot it immediately but when resilience is missing, it leaves a noticeable gap. Think about when someone on your team quietly starts withdrawing not offering ideas, hesitating to ask for help, or visibly struggling to reset after a setback. This is the quiet impact of depleted resilience. It doesn’t always show up in dramatic ways, but it gradually chips away at confidence, performance, and morale. 

Resilience is not just the ability to ‘push through’. It’s the capacity to recover, adapt, and continue contributing with clarity and confidence especially when demands are high. And the conditions around a person can either support that or slowly wear it down. 

According to the CIPD, resilience in the workplace refers to a person’s ability to stay well and perform despite adversity. It’s not simply surviving difficult moments but having the right environment and resources to thrive in high-pressure contexts (CIPD, 2024). Your role as an HR leader involves helping shape that environment, so resilience isn’t left entirely to the individual. 

What Strong, Resilient Teams Actually Look Like 

A resilient team isn’t immune to stress, they’re equipped to manage it. 

You’ll notice it in how they approach change. They ask questions instead of withdrawing. They stay focused on solutions. They know what’s expected, and they support each other when things feel uncertain. This kind of response doesn’t happen by accident it’s built over time through the systems, leadership, and support you put in place. 

According to the CIPD, resilience is shaped by high-quality relationships between team leaders and their teams underpinned by behaviours like setting clear goals, offering regular feedback, and creating a predictable environment. These elements help reduce ambiguity and increase a sense of safety and structure (CIPD, 2024). 

Confidence, optimism, and social support also play a key role. When team members feel anchored by these factors, they’re more likely to manage challenges constructively not reactively. That’s what makes resilience a strategic priority, not just a personal strength. 

Why Resilience Starts with You 

As a team leader or HR professional, your ability to support others depends on how you support yourself. 

Gallup’s research highlights that leaders shape most variation in team engagement and that includes how people experience stress (Gallup, 2023). When leaders are visibly managing their own pressure in healthy ways, teams tend to follow that example. 

It’s important to reflect on what this looks like in your own role. Are you modelling the boundaries and behaviours you want your team to adopt? Do you take space when you need it and talk about it without shame? Are you open about your own capacity and limits? 

Being honest with yourself is a powerful place to start. Ask: What’s draining my energy right now? What would help me feel more supported? How can I reflect those needs back to my team in a way that gives them permission to do the same? 

The way you show up matters. It signals whether your team can speak up, step back, or reset without fear or whether silence and burnout are more acceptable. 

Building the Conditions for Resilience 

Resilience isn’t just something people have, it’s something you can actively shape within your culture. 

There is good news: small, consistent actions can make a lasting impact. 

• Regular one-to-one check-ins help your team reprioritise and reduce overwhelm. These ongoing conversations, as Gallup notes, allow team members to share what’s on their minds and receive real-time guidance when pressure builds (Gallup, 2023) 

• Clear communication helps team members feel steady, especially when expectations shift. It creates predictability amid change (CIPD, 2024) 

• Highlight available support, like coaching or mental wellbeing services and talk about them openly. As Gallup recommends, when leaders engage with these tools themselves, it helps reduce stigma and increases access (Gallup, 2023) 

• Empower your team leads to act more like coaches than task managers. Gallup’s research shows this leadership style improves engagement, which in turn supports stress management and resilience (Gallup, 2023) 

This is about shaping the right conditions so your team can meet challenges with strength, not silence. 

Final Thoughts 

Stability and resilience may feel like abstract goals, but their effects are deeply practical. 

When your team feels secure, supported, and clear on how to respond under pressure, their ability to perform doesn’t disappear in the face of change it sharpens. That’s the value of resilience and it’s not something you leave to chance. 

As a team leader, you have influence and responsibility over the systems, relationships, and expectations that make resilience possible. This isn’t about adding more to your plate. It’s about intentionally shaping the environment so that both you and your team can thrive. 

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