Building Relational Resilience
Part 1: From Individual Bounce-Back to Collective Anti-Fragility
While organizations most often invest in individual development, most leadership breakdowns happen relationally. Communication breaks down, expectations conflict, trust erodes, teams fragment, and the rich, robust connections needed to navigate uncertainty become casualties of our attempts to manage it. This is tricky territory that asks us to stay present to relational connections precisely when survival instincts can tell us to control, defend, or withdraw. But what if these moments of breakdown aren't problems to fix or obstacles to overcome, but doorways of opportunity inviting growth? How can we recognize and step through these doorways? Furthermore, how/where do we find support in these spaces?
The Relational Imperative: From Bounce-Back to Anti-Fragility
Traditional conceptions of resilience focus on individual bounce-back—returning to some homeostatic norm after disruption. But this focus on returning to the norm might bypass doorways of opportunity. These doorways are often filtered out of our perception because we avoid the differences others represent. Relational resilience comes from engaging otherness.
This engagement with otherness requires us to move from asking "How do I stay strong?" to "How do we stay connected?" Prioritizing staying connected creates a container for being present to and navigating the challenging adaptive work of using breakdown, difference, and conflict as fuel for growth and development. Rather than returning to where the relationship was, we develop the capacity for what some call "anti-fragility," or the ability of the relational system to not merely withstand stresses but actively grow from them. The relationship becomes stronger, more adaptive and resilient because of what we've moved through together.
This move to prioritize connection and relationship with others (and otherness) is grounded in a more profound truth – that our identities only emerge through relationships. Parker Palmer noted this in the title of his book, To Know as We are Known. How we come to know and then act in the world is fundamentally informed by our relationships.
In turn, we inform others through our relationships with them. For example, as leaders, we unconsciously "create the weather" of the relational environment through many aspects of our beingness, such as our emotional states. When leaders are unable to regulate internal emotional turmoil, it leaks out, creating stormy weather where people end up devoting precious resources to self-protection. In turn, when leaders internal emotional state is clear and present for others, it creates conditions where people can focus on what matters. Thus, relationships are central to leadership.
The challenge is to avoid contributing to stormy weather. Each of us leads and is led through our relationships. When differences trigger emotional turmoil, the storm clouds gather. If we don't regulate this, the inner storm gathers momentum. To navigate this territory requires staying vulnerable and curious when these differences trigger us to "armour up" as Brene Brown says. This vulnerability requires us to be open to being touched by otherness and recognize that genuine connection involves what Parker Palmer calls the highest form of love; "intimacy that does not annihilate difference"—staying engaged with otherness rather than demanding sameness.
When Pressure Amplifies Division: The Fragmentation of Thought
Building on Gregory Bateson's insight about schismogenesis, the creation of division, we can see how minor differences escalate into relationship-destroying patterns when situational pressure overloads our ability to notice, suspend and redirect this process. The resulting cascade follows a predictable path up what Chris Argyris called the "ladder of inference": observable data → selective attention → interpreted meanings → assumptions about intentions → conclusions about character → defensive actions → relationship erosion.
As David Bohm observed, our minds are inherently limited and thus cannot comprehend wholeness – in ourselves or others. To compensate, our minds draw solid lines where in reality there are only arbitrarily constructed dotted ones. We become identified with these constructs of self and the world and thus become attached to these artificial divisions and defend them as if our lives depend on them. We literally fragment ourselves, others and the world, reducing the richness of reality in the process.
When difference crosses certain thresholds, it becomes a threat and there's always a moment when we feel the familiar script starting that justifies our mind's reduced reality and leads us up the ladder of inference with all its consequences. That moment is our opportunity to suspend the habituated process early, before it gains so much momentum we can't stop it. We can choose differently, notice we're climbing the ladder and use metacognition to change our stance from defense to curiosity.
Understanding these patterns is the foundation. Next week in Part 2, we'll explore four specific capacities that enable us to interrupt these cycles and build the relational resilience needed to transform breakdown into breakthrough. This exploration draws from our ongoing work—Jonathan’s through Adeptify and mine through Grounding Leadership—in helping people navigate these complex relational dynamics.
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It was so much fun to collaborate on this with you Melissa :-)