Edited by: Pontso Moorosi, University of Warwick, United Kingdom
Reviewed by: Emily Winchip, Zayed University, United Arab Emirates; Kay Fuller, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
This article was submitted to Leadership in Education, a section of the journal Frontiers in Education
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Turbulent events in leadership and in life can challenge even those most stoic in the face of adversity and loss. Prefacing with a combined definition of resilience, this paper illustrates the complete lifecycle of resilience in the face of adversity and its resultant rewards when and if appropriately applied. Phases included in this lifecycle are: normalcy, deterioration, adaptation, recovery, and growth. The paper then discusses the application of the revised Leader Resilience Profile® (LRP) data, comparing leader resilience according to gender and age. Results from this ongoing study on resilience clearly show as people age, their resilience increases. The 60+ age group, in particular, had significantly higher resilience scores than participants in other age groups. Men between the ages of 20–29 had significantly higher resilience scores than women of the same age group. Other age groups provided no notable differences or substantial correlations when it came to gender and age. A framework is presented for how to become more resilient throughout the life course. This framework includes positive well-being, assessing and strengthening meaningful intrinsic and extrinsic resources, self-efficacy, future-focus, and important strategic avenues for resilient aging. The paper then raises the questions: who ages resiliently, and how, and what differences are there between young, old, retired, and elderly individuals when it comes to living and working resiliently? The paper concludes that support and proactivity are the means for achieving positive growth orientation, quality of life, self-identity, purpose, inhibiting stress-related debilitation, and resilient aging.
People of all ages face adversity. How they adapt characterizes the resilience of any particular individual. Constituents, media, funding, peers, and shifting standards in education can disrupt the paths leaders pave in their professional careers, not to mention the personal, mental, and even physical impacts these carry when consistently under scrutiny. Surviving and thriving through these challenges is the essence of resilience, although resilience is more than merely enduring and surviving adversity. Rather, resilience is not only surviving but ultimately thriving in the face of adversity. Growth is engendered through challenges and experience along with the availing of supportive networks and resources. How leaders adjust to challenging situations in general, and in particular, how these adjustments correlate with the changes and challenges of physical and cognitive aging, is dependent on the characteristics of resilience discussed in this paper.
This paper contributes to the literature on resilience, offering salient findings on aging and resilience among educational leaders. The original dataset from LRP-R surveys on differences in resilience is reanalyzed to for correlation between gender and age. In particular, this paper furthers the conceptual understanding of resilience in the literature, as informed by the original findings of LRP-R on resiliency differences (
Commencing with a combined definition of resilience in leadership and aging, this paper highlights results from LRP-R data comparing leader resilience by gender and age, providing conceptual frameworks on resilience for younger and older leaders, prior to reaching retirement and elderly ages. The literature review on resilient aging elaborates on the patterns between age groups and their strategies for contented and resilient living over time. The paper presents a new framework: the Resilience Conceptual Framework for Aging and discusses primary and most notable differences between professional adults and the elderly, and how the implementation of resilience differs between these two groups. After describing a few limitations of the study, the paper concludes with insights for achieving resilience against aging. This study was undertaken to understand how older educational leaders employ resilience in the beginning stages of old age, and how these strategies may inform younger leaders, and others, in their professional and personal life trajectories.
Resilience Cycle.
The cycle begins with Phase 1, considered “normal conditions,” where life is continuing along normally for the individual. Resources are plentiful, performance is high, and there is ample community support. Then adversity strikes. The individual abruptly falls into Phase 2, the deteriorating phase of the resilience cycle, where they think and act in ways that increases stress reactions, such as anger, aggression, and fear, and they may blame others. The emotions of denial, grief, and anger thrust them into a reactive position, wallowing wallow in “victim” status. A notable distinction between resilient and non-resilient people is the time spent in Phase 2. Resilient people tend not to languish in the role of victim. They quickly move to Phase 3, the adapting phase, which begins when they assume some responsibility for their situation and take action to avoid staying mired in the dysfunctional deteriorating phase of the resilience cycle. Continuing an upward trajectory, the adapting phase gives way to Phase 4, the recovering phase, following a path back to the level of stability experienced before the onset of adversity. The regaining of the
Leader resilience skills.
In sum,
Resilience is understood in many ways, though these understandings are undergirded with a shared notion of coping, adapting, and thriving in the face of adversity. Resilience is not the same as being stalwart but refers to the capacity to be tenacious, proactive, resourceful, and future-oriented. It is to desire to grow into a more adaptive and less reactive self, beyond the original
Resilience requires a greater understanding of one’s identity and therefore, to be resilient means maintaining and utilizing meaningful social connections. These connections play a pivotal role in establishing life-strengths. Adaptation is arguably critical for personal growth and success. In terms of aging, these factors are particularly salient, as a lifetime of experience has enabled the development of many social connections and support, which in turn, bolsters understanding of oneself in context with these relationships and their histories.
Positive emotions have been shown to promote increased mental flexibility and lowered reactivity, improving and broadening coping skills and counteracting physiological effects of negative emotions (
Well-being, along with other resilience practices described in this review, is also measured by one’s spirituality or practice of religion as it provides a working avenue toward acceptance of change and reestablishing purpose in life. Spirituality, as a goal, resource, and strategy also fills emotional gaps that personal reflection may not in the wake of loss as it offers an avenue to faith and acceptance for unexpected losses. Regular practice of positive emotions in times of adversity strengthens resilience by reducing stress, a primary contributor to decrepitation and/or illness. Similarly,
While
Following the notion of pursuing one’s purpose and growth throughout the life course,
One elderly woman offered a personal contribution to the literature as a woman in her nineties, including lessons on managing the losses that come with aging while resolving to be happy in old age (
In
While not measured in our instrument, the literature review demonstrates that it is imperative to include in the findings of this study on resilience and aging that the key to successful aging is happiness, as happiness indicates the ability to maintain positive relationships and adaptability to challenges makes a more resilient self (
Whether one is resilient, however, is largely dependent on one’s proactivity (
This study’s literature review therefore highlights that to strategize, therefore, is to defend and expand one or multiple abilities as, indeed, many areas of growth overlap, ultimately making their eventual loss with age easier to endure. The literature review also highlights that resilience can then build upon itself as years pass, strengthened by the utilization of internal and external resources such as perseverance, support, and self-realization, which provide not only growth from loss, but also reduces one’s need for intrinsic and extrinsic “replenishment,” either socially, emotionally, economically and so on. This then allows a greater sense of autonomy over one’s life, and confidence in one’s choices for their future, encouraging a positive outlook on challenges to come, as well as one’s skills as a leader in education as well as in life (
Further analysis of the findings
Data collected for the original study were provided through the senior author’s consulting work, and participating respondents of the Leader Resilience Profile® (LRP-R) website:
Subjects were drawn from the governing boards of the American Association of School Administrators, Learning Forward, and the National Association of Elementary Principals, with the survey administered to 277 school administrators under the age of 70. The study received IRB approval from St. John Fisher University, and informed consent was granted from participants and their anonymity guaranteed.
The original LRP contained 73 items. Over 1,000 respondents completed the LRP from 2009 to 2012. In 2012, the LRP was revised with a shortened data instrument and improved psychometric properties. The revised instrument (LRP-R) (
For this study, we selected items for the LRP-R from the original database of findings. Two items from each subscale was selected with the lowest factor loadings dropped. We created 12 4-item subscales, increasing the current LRP-R to 44 items. Separated by 8 weeks, two tests were performed with subjects. For validity, we used the Brief Resilience Scale and Ego Resilience Scale.
Overall resilience scores were calculated by averaging the 11 subscale scores for each participant. Overall scores ranged from 5 (lowest resilience) to 20 (highest resilience). The overall scale demonstrated adequate internal consistency in this sample (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.74). LRP-R subscale scores were not utilized for the purpose of this study. A 1-way ANOVA of resilience scores by age was conducted to determine the correlation between resilience and age. A Wilcoxon rank-sum tests was used to test the difference between male and female median resilience in each age group, with Bonferroni method employed to correct
As cited in
Sample characteristics by age group.
LRP-R resilience |
||||
Age | N | Female N (%) | Mean | |
20–29 | 69 | 47 (68%) | 16.1 | 2.1 |
30–39 | 69 | 40 (58%) | 16.4 | 1.3 |
40–49 | 64 | 41 (64%) | 16.7 | 1.8 |
50–59 | 46 | 33 (72%) | 16.8 | 1.3 |
≥60 | 27 | 18 (67%) | 17.4 | 1.8 |
A planned contrast showed that participants in the 60 + age group, compared with all other age groups combined, demonstrated significantly higher resilience scores,
LRP-R resilience by gender and age.
A reanalysis of the original dataset from the administration of the LRP-R has led to a proposed framework on the correlations between aging and resilience. Below is a chart that outlines resources and strategies older adults might utilize to strengthen their resilience as they age.
The chart above shows the predictors of resilience—positive well-being, optimism, awareness and utilization of learned and/or innate skill sets, the awareness and availing of external resources, and the routine practice of self-strengthening strategies. The implementation of these strategies improves anticipation and resolution of problems, as supported by
Aging leads to numerous challenges physically, cognitively, and emotionally (
In some ways, aging is facing the fact of impermanence, with physical and cognitive losses indicating a release on the vigor of life. However, there is one striking difference that is unique to the elderly: adapting to permanence. This is shown most particularly in the
In younger and most middle-aged adults, resilience comes with an opportunity for preparedness for, and, most importantly, prevention of similar challenges; for growth over loss; the return to and surpassing of normalcy to an even better position than before. For the elderly, resilience is most frequently used to cope with a change that cannot be reversed, but instead can be adapted to for the purpose of compensating for loss and achieving an alternative vision of normalcy. Resilience in old age is minimizing the impact of cumulative losses through spiritual and social connectedness, as well as creative compensation for once loved, but now challenging hobbies. This is achieved through the openness and adaptation to new ways of living, and thereby increasing strength and resilience in the face of new realities.
The largest difference between the resilience cycle, the conceptual framework of aging, and aging itself is not the emphasis of value added, but adaptability to loss and adjusting to pivotal life changes by creatively and positively dealing with the shrinking domains of one’s world. The resilience concepts therefore are no longer applied so as to prevent, but to create a new normal by dealing with losses associated with aging through acceptance and re-invention of long-practiced routines. One is then able to reflect on ways to minimize the losses and their subsequent impacts by adapting to different ways of doing old things, thereby avoiding discontentedness in life and reaching satisfactory, or even enhanced, quality of life.
There are threats to the validity of this study because it was self-selection and not a sample of any true population and the demographics were not monitored carefully enough to make any generalizations about representativeness. The study focused on school administrators during their time of practice, which excludes the elderly (over the age of 70) as a subject group. One limitation was the lack of literature on educational leadership and resilience in relation to aging. Considerations for future study include the transfer of concepts of resilience research in leadership to aging, conducting qualitative research such as interviews and focus forums of elderly people in regard to the “resilient strengths.” Further research should also be conducted on larger samples in each age range for more refined data on resilience in relation to the given demographics socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and nationality, especially in places that have experienced longevity explosions.
This continuation of our research using the Leadership Resilience Profile® demonstrates that resilience increases as individuals age. Men, particularly between the ages of 20–29, show significantly higher resilience than women of the same age group. Subjects over 60 demonstrate higher resilience rates than all other age groups. For the other age groups, no significant differences emerged.
Younger individuals perceive adversity as an inhibitor to achieve goals while older adults view adversity as challenging opportunities. As older adults deal with adversity at an ever-increasing rate (
Resilient aging, therefore, is directly impacted by one’s focus on the future: where one wants to see oneself physically, emotionally, and cognitively in the future, deducing what must be done to actualize this goal, and actively pursuing it. It is proactivity toward not just surviving but thriving in the face of adversity and making future challenges easier to overcome, termed growth motivation (
All datasets presented in this study are included in the article/supplementary material.
DR conducted the research. AR did the literature review. Both authors contributed to numerous revisions.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = neutral; 4 = agree; 5-strongly agree.
I have a positive influence in making things happen.
I expect that good things can come out of an adverse situation.
I focus my energy on the opportunities to be found in a bad situation, without downplaying the importance of obstacles.
I demonstrate an overall strength of optimism in my leadership style.
I gather the necessary information from reliable sources about what is really happening relative to the adversity.
I seem to look for the positive aspects of adversity to balance the negative aspects.
I seem to accept the reality that adversity is both inevitable and many times occurs unexpectedly.
I possess the overall strength of understanding current reality in my leadership role.
I make value-driven decisions even in the face of strong opposing forces.
I am able to privately clarify or publicly articulate my core values.
I rely on strongly held moral or ethical principles to guide me through adversity.
I demonstrate an overall strength of being value-driven in my leadership role.
I have an overall sense of competence and confidence in my leadership role.
I take a deliberate, step-by-step approach to overcome adversity.
I demonstrate the essential knowledge and skills to lead in tough times.
I maintain a confident presence as leader in the midst of adversity.
I reach out to build trusting relationships with those who can provide support in tough times.
When adversity strikes, I try to learn from the experiences of others who faced similar circumstances.
I have a strong support base to help me through tough times in my leadership role.
I try to learn from role models who have a strong track record of demonstrating resilience.
I can emotionally accept those aspects of adversity that I can’t influence in a positive way.
I demonstrate an understanding of my emotions during adversity and how these emotions affect my leadership performance.
I create time for replenishing my emotional energy.
I have the overall strength of emotional well-being in my leadership role.
I demonstrate an overall strength of physical well-being in order to effectively carry out my leadership role.
I never let adverse circumstances that inevitably happen disrupt my long-term focus on maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
I monitor my personal health factors and then adjust my behavior accordingly.
I find healthy ways for channeling my physical energy to relieve stress.
I take prompt, principled action on unexpected threats before they escalate out of control.
I take prompt, decisive action in emergency situations that demand an immediate response.
I am able to make needed decisions if they run counter to respected advice by others.
I demonstrate an overall strength of making courageous decisions in my leadership role.
When I choose to take not leadership action in the face of adversity, I accept personal accountability for this choice.
I accept accountability for the long-term organizational impact of any tough leadership decisions I make.
I have an overall strength of accepting personal responsibility for my leadership actions.
In my leadership role, I acknowledge mistakes in my judgment by accepting responsibility to avoid these mistakes in the future.
I adjust my expectations about what is possible based on the current situation.
I put my mistakes in perspective and move beyond them.
I change course, as needed, to adapt to changing circumstances.
I search for creative strategies to achieve positive results in a difficult situation.
I refuse to give up in overcoming adversity, even when all realistic strategies have been exhausted.
I sustain a steady focus on the most important priorities until I achieve successful results.
I demonstrate perseverance in my leadership role.
I never let distractions interfere with my focus on important goals and tasks.
SCORING: To compute subscale scores, average the items associated with each LRP-R subscale.
Subscale Items
Optimism—Future 1–4
Optimism—Reality 5–8
Personal Values 9–12
Personal Efficacy 13–16
Support Base 17–20
Emotional Well-being 21–24
Physical Well-being 25–28
Decision-making 29–32
Personal Responsibility 33–36
Adaptability 37–40
Perseverance 41–44.