Resilient Leadership. Qualitative Study on Factors Influencing Organizational Resilience and Adaptive Response to Adversity

Abstract

Given the turbulent environment that govern­ments and citizens across the globe faced in the last two years (due to the COVID-19 pandemic), one concept seems to stand out as extremely valuable in this context: resilience.

Resilience, understood as the capacity of a sys­tem to bounce back from adversity, becomes a key component in the equation of post-pandemic evo­lution and recovery. Resilient leadership is just one of the multiple derived applications of the general resilience concept, referring (in an institutional set­ting) to the capacity of leaders to turn out positive results despite adverse conditions. Based on quali­tative research consisting of 10 interviews conduct­ed with women leaders (from the private and non­profit sectors) during the last 18 months, our results show that governmental response (regulation and support) and financial pressures have been the ma­jor organizational challenges no matter the sector, while organizational dimension seems to have an influence on the capacity to adapt and respond to adversity. Gender does not seem to play a role in the response provided to the crisis.