Resilience is a word and an attribute that is increasingly becoming more and more familiar in the world of leadership. After all, one cannot be expected to always win in every situation. There are plenty of times when one ends up snatching a loss from the jaws of victory—I know the expression probably seems a little lopsided to most readers, but I’ve always found it deliciously ironic. In a situation of failure, most people would be reasonably expected to be rather devastated. The ability to bounce back from failure is what resilience is all about. If one has to define resilience, then usually the definition involves the ability to face or respond to a failure or a drawback of some kind. Resilience could be on a continuum of course—for instance, a person may be resilient in one area, but less so in another area. However, from a leadership perspective, resilience is often thought to be one of the components of psychological capital or PsyCap as it is popularly acronymized as.

PsyCap basically refers to the internal resources a person has in order to be able to manage difficult or turbulent situations. It consists of four components, namely hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism. As you can see, each component of it helps people tackle tough times. For instance, a person definitely needs a healthy dose of optimism and hope when facing tough times, and similarly needs to be confident in one's own ability to eventually be successful. The resilience piece specifically deals with how a person can deal with and overcome challenging or stressful circumstances, and still be able to forge forward.

Dogs are among nature's most resilient animals, and many-a-dog has displayed amazing tenacity and the ability to bounce back from really awful and harrowing situations. That ability to bounce back from emotionally or physically draining activities and incidents is what resilience is all about. Although, one could make the case, that possessing high levels of overall psychological capital is an essential recipe for being able to bounce back from failure and go on to a successful outcome.