Resilience is Futile. While GenXers are building resilience, Millennials want HOPE Leadership

The pandemic has accelerated an inevitable whole-scale change in how we work. The risk with the focus on resilience is it lulls us into a false sense of security that ‘if we can just get through this time of deep discomfort, we’ll be fine’. We won’t. 

If resilience helps us roll with the punches, shouldn’t we first ask whether we’re in the wrong boxing ring? Or even the wrong sport.

Put it another way: Would you rather be working for a resilient leader or a leader who inspires you to have hope for the future? 

Wouldn’t you rather be part of creating new ways of working? Collaborating to redefine an inspiring future of work?

Resilience is more of a Gen X mindset. It’s HOPE Leadership that’s needed to attract the best of the Millennial workforce. And while youth unemployment is a massive problem - making it a recruiter’s market – there will still be competition to attract and retain the best. 

HOPE makes us look to the future in a positive way. In the context of Fourth Industrial revolution and in the middle of a pandemic, it's very easy to think there is no future, that everything is bleak and the prospects for humanity just looks awful. 

And this is why HOPE leadership is vital.

But what is HOPE Leadership? Watch here:  https://youtu.be/LJc7-YRlSVU

The first part of HOPE Leaderships is about yourself, it requires you to work on your inner wellbeing, and developing your state of contentment, your happiness.

H is for happiness 

Happiness will help your mental and physical wellbeing, it will help you make better decisions, be more productive and become a leader people want to follow.

It's not about silliness, it's not about funniness. It's not frivolous.

It's about deep contentment, and it's about self-compassion and it's about feeling expansive.

The next part of Hope Leadership is when you start to look outside yourself, to consider your view of the world with a realistic and positive outlook.

O stands for optimism.

Optimism is about assessing how things are now and believing things can be better. It’s about bold ambition. 

It’s knowing there are opportunities out there and exploring how your organisation can be great by steering in the right direction. 

For some this will be about zigging and zagging: It may be utilising how your business currently works or maybe it’s about going beyond that and forging in a new direction away from what you currently do.

It's not about blind optimism, it's not lacking in realism, it's not fantasy.

Optimism is about creating an exciting and believable vision of what is possible. Then sharing the vision so it creates cohesion, a thing to focus on that brings people together. 

It's about leading so people can align with you. 

P is for playfulness 

HOPE Leaders enable their people to make the ideas happen, and they do this by equipping and empowering people to get creative and play with what’s possible.

Playfulness builds culture and generates new ideas through creativity.

It’s about fun, it’s about laughter, it’s about innovation. 

Creating a playful culture enables collaborative creativity, giving everyone permission to play with ideas within the constraints of the optimistic, inspiring vision. 

By equipping and expecting people to play with ideas HOPE Leaders facilitate the discovery of better ways to deliver on the vision. 

E is for empathy 

The 4th part of this is when HOPE Leaders go beyond the focus on their inner self, beyond sharing the vision, beyond facilitating co-creation. 

HOPE leaders bring diverse teams together.

They connect with people. They really empathise.

And this is about empathising in the true sense of the word, not just feeling sorry for people

Empathy is often seen as feeling sorry for people. It’s much more than that. 

Real empathy is about connecting with the range of energies people have and through that, by understanding the energies and the strengths of different people, by bringing in and using diversity, you then create a future which is full of hope.

SUMMARY

The future needs leaders who inspire HOPE.

The freedom to play with what's possible stems from inner self wellbeing. This stems from happiness. And from a state of happiness you have a more positive outlook on the world - leading to optimism and developing a vision of a better future. From this vision you inspire others to play with ideas of what’s possible, which when combined with empathy includes diversity of thinking HOPE leaders create a brighter, better future.  

For further information developing HOPE Leadership contact me on [email protected]