How to Grow a Resilient Team: Real Workplace Examples That Work
- Cara Heilmann
- 2 hours ago
- 8 min read
Thriving in the modern workplace isn’t easy.
So many teams today are navigating chronic stress, difficulty unplugging from work, and the uncertain whirlwind of tech changes.
This is where resilience comes in.
Resilience is the skill that helps you and your team adapt and grow through challenges.
And the good news is that as a manager, you can actively help your team become more resilient.
I’ve worked in HR for two decades, including as a VP of HR. Now, as a career and executive coach, I help leaders build careers and cultures that can weather storms and bounce forward stronger.
In this article, I’ll walk you through real-world examples and practical tools to help you cultivate a more resilient team.
What Does it Mean to Be Resilient?
Resilience is the ability to move through difficult experiences without losing your center.
If you lack mental resilience, you might take failure personally, get stuck in self-doubt, or feel like one tough moment derails everything.
Resilience doesn’t mean you never fall. It means that when you do get knocked down, you know how to get back up and keep walking. And with each stumble, you gain a bit of wisdom about what tripped you up.
Resilience also doesn’t mean you just grit your teeth and push through at all costs. Or that you stuff down your negative emotions, numb yourself to life, and pretend things don’t hurt.
Instead, true resilience often looks like:
Asking for help and accepting support
Reframing challenges in ways that give you more agency and empowerment
Feeling difficult emotions without getting stuck in them
Pacing yourself and creating a healthy work-life balance instead of burning out and trying to prove your strength
Letting go of what no longer serves you—whether that’s a plan, a belief, or a relationship
Personal resilience is less about toughness and more about the flexibility and resourcefulness to move through hardship.
And the interesting thing about resilience is that it doesn’t just apply to individuals; it also applies to teams.
What does it mean for a team to be resilient?
Your team will inevitably go through difficult periods.
And ultimately, a resilient team knows how to move through unexpected challenges together.
If your team lacks resilience, they might crumble under pressure, avoid accountability, or turn to blame instead of learning.
But when you’ve cultivated a resilient team, they’ll know how to:
Support each other (and ask for help) when stress runs high
Adapt quickly to changing conditions
Embrace challenges as growth opportunities
Learn from mistakes
Share hard truths and feedback when needed
Here’s a simple framework that captures how resilience often unfolds:
The beauty of resilience is that when things get tough, your team can actually grow stronger and more connected.
The 2 Ways to Make Your Team More Resilient
As a team lead, there are ultimately two ways to promote resilience on your team.
Model it and manage for it.
Modeling resilience means that when times are difficult, you can personally adapt, stay grounded, lean on support, and move through challenging emotions.
It also means that when your team is in a crisis, you lead with trust, communication, and connection.
Essentially, you become a walking example of how to skillfully deal with difficult situations.
Managing for resilience means coaching your team members to bounce back and grow through challenges together.
That involves making space for difficult emotions, encouraging growth mindsets, and actively checking in on employees’ workload and motivation levels.
Managing for resilience also means fostering collaboration, encouraging rest and celebration after big pushes, and facilitating spaces for open communication.
Studies suggest that 76% of board-level professionals say that workplace resilience is “essential to career success.” But only 10% of all employees say their organization places a lot of emphasis on helping learn resilience.
If you want to be an exceptional manager, my advice is to be in that 10%.
Let’s go over some examples of resilience and how to move through tough moments as a team.
5 Examples of Showing Resilience at Work (and How to Make Your Team Stronger)
Below are relatable examples of how emotional resilience can show up at work.
Scan through these, and reflect on how your team has historically responded under pressure, and ways you could develop more resilient individuals and teams in the future.
1. Navigating a project crisis without blame
Example: Your team is working on a high-stakes project, but you get hit with unexpected delays. All of a sudden, you're behind and may miss a deadline. This is a high-stress moment where it’d be very easy to fall into frustration and finger-pointing.
What resilience could look like: As a manager, your steadiness is crucial in a situation like this.
Can you hold the grounding frame that everything is going to be okay?
And further, can you make space for open dialogue about what’s not working without dropping blame on anyone?
It often helps to own your part in the setback, while still encouraging a focus on solutions.
Moments like these are when teams either fracture or grow stronger together. So if you can come in seeking to foster integrity, openness, and support, then these high-stress challenges are actually golden opportunities to forge a stronger team.
2. Supporting a teammate through burnout
Example: One of your most reliable team members starts missing deadlines and seems unusually withdrawn. You’re not certain what’s going on, but you suspect they may be dealing with challenges in their personal life or just hitting a wall from too many late nights of work.
What resilience could look like: This is a moment where pushing your team member to power through will probably make things worse.
When someone seems like they’re struggling, first things first: connect one-on-one. On a human level.
Check in with genuine care and curiosity. Ask how they’re really doing. Lend an ear, and make it clear that even when they’re going through a tough patch, they’re still a valued member of the team.
Once you know what’s going on, offer support and give them permission to shift their work priorities until they feel back on track.
Resilience often starts with learning to work sustainably. That might mean taking time for recovery after intense sprints and resting when things feel overwhelming.
The more you normalize these habits, the more you encourage resilience through compassion instead of pressure.
3. Refocusing after a disappointing quarter
Example: Your team put in hard work, but the numbers came in short. Oof. Morale is hurting, and people are questioning whether their efforts made any difference.
What resilience could look like: This is a tough spot to be in. But don’t rush to paint a silver lining too quickly.
In a moment like this, it can help to start by honestly naming the disappointment. Something like, “We all put in hard work, but we came up short this quarter. I’m sure many of us are feeling discouraged.”
Sometimes, simply acknowledging a painful feeling is what allows it to move along its natural course.
From there, turn the moment into a learning opportunity.
Not from a place of telling people what they did wrong. But more from an exploratory place. Get on the same team and look at the quarter together—what did we try? What worked and what didn't? What’d we learn, and what can we do differently?
If you ignore the disappointment entirely, your team will feel the disconnect. It’s like everyone’s standing on a heap of crap while you’re talking about how good it smells.
At the same time, you don’t want to get pulled too far into discouragement. There’s a difference between honoring the feelings and drowning in them.
Once you’ve processed the moment together, your team can move forward with a shared understanding of what happened—and a clear sense of where you’re going next.
4. Owning a leadership mistake publicly
Example: You made a bad decision that created unnecessary pressure for the team. Maybe you overpromised on a timeline or underestimated how much time and effort a project would take. Either way, people are hurting, and it’s because of something you did.
What resilience could look like: Look, making a big mistake is never pleasant, especially as a leader.
But honestly, it’s one of the greatest opportunities for you to build trust and resilience among your team.
When you can own up to a mistake—without deflecting, downplaying, or blaming—then boy can it earn you trust and respect. Frankly, people will probably respect you more after owning up to a big mistake than if you hadn’t made the mistake at all!
Taking responsibility for an oops shows humility, integrity, and vulnerability. It also gives your teammates permission to be imperfect and encourages them to own their mistakes too.
After you take accountability, share what you’ve learned, then give your team space to reflect on the impact and discuss how to move forward together.
5. Managing team emotions during restructuring
Example: A company-wide reorg shifts team roles, removes long-standing projects, or introduces new reporting structures. Maybe a few people were even laid off. Now your team feels disoriented, insecure, and even angry.
What resilience could look like: These types of stressful situations aren’t easy. So don’t pretend like everything is rainbows and sunshine.
If everyone is hurting, and you say, “It’s all fine!” you’ll immediately lose team trust.
Instead, acknowledge the emotional reality and give space for people to process. Be clear that this is a tough situation. Even share how it’s impacting you.
Once people feel like there’s space for their emotional reactions, then help them reclaim their agency.
Ask questions like “What’s still in our control?” or “What new opportunities might this open?”
If you can stay present through the discomfort and help your team find footing amidst the storms of change, you’ll create a team resilient enough for any challenge.
Everyday Practices to Build Team Resilience
Instead of just waiting for disaster to strike, you can start building resilience on your team today by getting intentional with your leadership.
If you’d like to empower each teammate’s individual resilience, consider any of these ideas:
Check-ins: In your 1-on-1s, check in on how people are doing emotionally. If someone is struggling, sometimes just having that known can give them a sense of solidarity to move forward.
Acknowledgement: Appreciate your team members’ efforts, not just their wins. For many of us, acknowledgement gives us more strength and energy.
Support: When someone hits a challenge, ask, “What kind of support would feel most helpful right now?” Help people ask for help.
Growth: Reflect back growth you’ve seen in each team member over time (“I remember a few months ago, when you presented to leadership, you were so nervous you couldn’t sleep the night before. But look how confident you handled that meeting today!”)
And if you’d like some ideas to help your team become more resilient as a unit, try out one of these ideas:
Learning: After a tough sprint or period of change, ask the team, “What helped us get through that?” This type of reflection can build a shared toolkit of effective strategies.
Sharing about resilience: Start a meeting by asking everyone to share a recent challenge they overcame
Lead by example: Talk openly about a moment when you felt stuck and how you adjusted course or asked for help. When you treat resilience as something you’re still learning, your team feels permission to be imperfect too.
If you want more ideas on how to make your team feel more tight-knit, check out this article.
These kinds of practices can go a long way in building a robust and resilient team. Because, after all, resilience is a learnable skill.
Want to Become Even More Masterful at Resilience?
If you’d like to go even deeper into teaching your team members how to become more resilient, you might be interested in training your coaching skills.
Learning to coach means learning to bring the best out of your team, and creating a work environment that fosters growth and empowerment. If you want to learn more, check out the training here.
