Most managers experience traumatic events while on the job. Some can bounce back from a life-stressor and others don’t.

In the March PM magazine article “Building Career Resiliency,” authors Pat Martel and Jan Perkins write that if people can reframe a difficult experience into a constructive one, they can become more resilient, which also can make them more positive and effective leaders.

The authors include these seven traits and practices, along with their own resiliency tips, that will encourage resiliency at any point during a person’s career:

1. Practice self-awareness. Know yourself well, including your strengths and weaknesses.
2. Know what you believe in and foster the right institutional values. Be explicit about the core values that guide you.
3. Articulate specific goals. Identify specific goals for your career and for the organization where you work to make it more likely that you’ll achieve them.
4. Embrace (calculated) risk. Know that risking failure is necessary in order to achieve your goals.
5. Balance optimism and realism. Assess situations and make judgments based on data and observation, not emotion or wishful thinking.
6. Seek feedback. Have the ability to listen to feedback without taking criticism personally.
7. Build relationships. Form relationships with people in your career who will nurture you, give you confidence to take risks, tell you the facts you need to do your job effectively, offer support during difficult times, and celebrate milestones and achievements with you.

Want to learn more on building career resiliency in local government? Register for this free ICMA Summit Workshop with Women Leading Government: You Have What It Takes to Be a Resilient Leader. 

This March issue also includes these management-related articles, among others:

Unleashing Creativity

Spotlight on Police Culture