Sailing the Atlantic and other stories – How I honed my personal resilience

It may be your worst nightmare but for me, the thought of sailing across the Atlantic was exciting. I imagined a few weeks of endless blue horizons as trade winds filled the sails. I would navigate by stars and a trusty GPS, enjoying gentle sunshine and a salt-kissed complexion. My days would blur between watch schedules, weather systems, and maintenance tasks. I was under no illusion that it would be hard work despite my romantic imaginings. I’d sailed blue water many times during JOG races in the Channel and the very necessary sea survival courses. I knew that it would be both an adventure and a challenge to cross the world’s second-largest ocean.

Reality hit hard. We blew our headsail within the first hour of the race and spent 45 minutes trying to bring the broken sail out of the water. We experienced the expected strong trade winds and waves crashing between the stanchions as we skipped over the surface of the waves, everything stowed and making good progress. But we also had days of absolutely no wind and despite trimming hard, barely made any progress at all.

It was during those quiet days that I really honed the skill of resilience. My role on the crew was to trim the sails – making small adjustments to capture the wind and push us towards the Caribbean – and I shared watch with a rota of four crew on and four crew off at any time. For a few hours each day, there was very little to do once I’d prepared the day’s food. And I confess that, at times, I was quite bored. This is when I had to drive myself – to discover small entertainments to keep the old brain ticking over and to ensure I was ready to act if my crew needed me. From keeping a basil plant alive during the journey to becoming quite adept at spotting flying fish, dolphins and whales – I found ways to keep myself – and others – occupied and ready to focus when needed.

Why leadership resilience is so important

Resilience in leadership means having the tools to ensure that you can bounce back from challenges in both your business and your personal life. It means being adaptable, emotionally flexible and able to use problem solving strategies to navigate difficulties. It also means having the strength to sometimes stop and reconsider, to keep the team motivated and moving forward when market conditions are tough, and it means keeping focused with a sense of purpose.

Resilience is a key skill for a successful leader and whilst for most of us it’s an innate character trait, it’s important to train, enhance and maintain the skill. Remember back to lockdowns? Leaders need to draw upon their resilience to look for opportunities during the uncertainty, find ways to flex and adapt all whilst keeping the team motivated and engaged. Returning to work after lockdowns brought different challenges, equally as important to overcome. Looking back, I’m proud that I helped maintain a positive work experience throughout lockdowns, retaining all of our staff and supporting the business until it bounced back. And it’s mainly thanks to my personal resilience.

Resilience in business

In my 19 years as a leader in business, I’ve had many challenges come my way from many different quarters – challenges that could have diverted me from my career and business goals, if I’d have let them. From changes in governments and policy, to funding cuts. From supply challenges – particularly from the recent blockades in the Suez and from. China and Brexit, to the rise in utility and national insurance costs. All challenges on the macro level but these are alongside smaller, sometimes local changes can together impact trading or the team.

Let’s look back to lockdowns again when we could no longer welcome visitors to the Rothamsted estate for meetings or to do business. Rather than closing down, we as a  team got creative and pivoted to a takeaway offer and ‘hamper’ service from our restaurant perfect for walkers and local residents who wanted restaurant quality food or the ingredients to cook at home. Another opportunity we identified was to bring the West End to Harpenden. Very talented world-class performers couldn’t get on the national stage due to the restrictions. Instead, they came to Rothamsted. When able, we adapted to the Covid-space guidelines and delivered world-class performances that generated an income for us and the singers, and entertained local residents.

Practice your own resilience so you’re ready for any challenge

There will always be factors outside of our leadership control that can impact the marketplace, how you operate, or your team dynamics. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to successfully support your business, your people and your customers, so you have to give yourself the best possible skillset – that includes honing your personal resilience. Resilience is a skill that remains important throughout your leadership life but it’s more than just a physical skill. It’s a mindset that allows you to view change as a means of evolving and progressing, reaching your goal in potentially a different way.

In business, as in life, you’ll find some changes are visible and you will see them approaching. Other changes hit you at 100 miles an hour. You never know when time demands you draw upon your personal store of resilience. Therefore, I challenge all leaders to consider their personal resilience and decide in advance how you will deliver at peak performance when it’s needed. Do you need resilience training or take on a challenge that delivers maintenance support?

Ten weeks training to walk a marathon to fundraise for a cancer charity was one of my ‘maintenance’ tactics. Long walks every weekend proved my commitment, which was further tested when my walking partner had to pull out just before the event. I’ve also learned my own personal drivers, and ensure that these are in place so I can draw on my resilience skills when needed.

Think too about your personal drivers. What do you need to operate at optimum levels and how do these drivers support your resilience? One of my drivers is food – I have to know when and what I’m going to eat as my role is physically and mentally tiring and I need energy to perform at my best. By ensuring that I have nutritiously-dense snacks available at all times, means that I know that I can fuel my resilience for when it’s needed.

I believe that my strong resilience allows me to think about each change or challenge as an opportunity and not a blocker. It mirrors Franklin D. Roosevelt’s thoughts “To reach a port, we must sail – sail, not tie at anchor – sail, not drift.” To me, this captures the essence of resilience: moving forward despite uncertainty, taking on a challenge not avoiding it. 

Think of improving your resilience the same way you’d approach learning any skill. What will you do to practice resilience across multiple aspects of your life?  Let me know.