Developing Resilience: How to Equip Leaders and Teams for Sustained Pressure

Resilience is often judged by how leaders respond to a crisis. But what helps them and their teams keep making sound decisions when pressure lasts for months – even years – rather than days or weeks?

A leadership team has made it through a demanding quarter. They met targets, kept a major project on track, and stepped in wherever they were needed. Then the next quarter begins with another shift in priorities and no real chance to regain capacity. 

On paper, the team is performing. In practice, decisions are taking longer. Small problems are being raised later. Leaders have less time to think, and teams have less room to adjust when plans change. 

​​​François Barbier, Managing Partner at Signium in Paris points out that this is a different test from responding well to a single disruption. He says,

“Resilience under sustained pressure means being able to keep quiet, think clearly, work together, adapt, and still have the capacity to do it again. You can’t measure it only by how long people keep going. A team may push through one demanding period, but if each occasion leaves them with less to draw on, that isn’t sustainable.”  

A 2025 World Economic Forum and McKinsey survey found that 84% of the companies surveyed felt underprepared for future disruptions. Preparing for those disruptions asks for more than a response plan. It also requires leaders and teams who can remain effective through the demands that precede and follow a crisis. 

What changes when pressure becomes constant? 

Some pressure sharpens attention. Leaders make difficult calls, teams pull together, and people find ways around obstacles. Yet, an exceptional effort can’t become the standard way of working without a cost. 

The first signs may be easy to miss because work is still getting done. A leader who once invited challenge starts making decisions with fewer people in the room. A team puts off discussing a risk because everyone is busy delivering the current plan. Another urgent request is accepted without deciding what will move aside to accommodate it. 

None of these actions necessarily signals a lack of commitment or ability. They may be warning signs that the capacity behind current performance is narrowing. 

Managers are part of this picture too. In its 2026 State of the Global Workplace report, Gallup found that global manager engagement fell from 27% in 2024 to 22% in 2025. ​​This decline reminds us to pay attention to managers’ own experience at work. Organizations that ask managers to guide teams through change should also ask what support those managers need. 

Barbier emphasizes that a team can meet every target today and still be running down the capacity it needs for tomorrow: “We must look beyond whether the work is getting done and ask whether people can keep doing it well.”  

How can leaders tell when pressure is affecting their judgment?  

A resilient leader isn’t someone who never feels pressure. What matters is whether they can recognize its effect before it determines how they lead. 

1. Everything starts to feel urgent 

A leader may notice they’re reacting to each new request with the same intensity. When everything feels immediate, it becomes harder to distinguish what truly needs attention from what can wait. That’s a cue to pause and reset priorities. 

2. Familiar answers become too appealing 

Under pressure, leaders may reach quickly for an approach that worked before, even when the situation has changed. Asking a colleague to challenge their thinking can expose an assumption they’ve stopped questioning. 

3. Difficult trade-offs are postponed 

A leader may know that a commitment is no longer realistic but hesitate to say so. Instead, the team keeps trying to absorb the extra work. Naming the constraint early creates a chance to change the deadline, the scope, or the resources before the problem grows. 

“These are skills that can be developed,” encourages Barbier. “Coaching can help leaders understand how they respond when demands compete or they feel less in control. Looking back after a difficult period can show which decisions held up and which were rushed. Even a brief pause can help them consider their options before urgency makes the choice for them.”  

None of this requires a leader to be calm and collected at every moment. It calls on them to recognize when pressure is changing their behavior and to have people around them who can help them regain perspective.  

That becomes harder if admitting strain is treated as a sign that they’re not up to the role. As much as personal habits matter, so does a leader’s willingness to talk openly about capacity and what the team can realistically sustain.  

Teams need steadiness without rigidity 

Under pressure, a team needs to know where the priorities lie and who is responsible for what. That clarity gives people a stable point from which to act. Yet, if the plan can’t be questioned or changed, steadiness becomes rigidity. 

Consider two teams facing the same unexpected delay. In the first, people quietly work around the problem. They know the deadline is at risk, but nobody wants to be the one to say so. The issue reaches the leader when few options remain. 

In the second, a team member raises the delay early. The group checks what depends on the work, agrees which parts of the plan can change, and tells affected colleagues what to expect. The delay still has a cost, but the team has more room to manage it. 

That difference depends partly on whether people believe they can speak candidly. “Psychological safety does not remove accountability, but it allows the whole team to openly share their concerns and access the critical information it needs to act,” adds Barbier. 

Leaders can make this practical by asking direct questions during demanding periods: 

• What are we seeing that the current plan doesn’t account for? 

• Where is work depending too heavily on one person? 

• Which commitment needs to change if this new priority takes precedence? 

The value lies in what happens next. If people raise a concern but no decision follows, they may stop raising it. If raising a problem leads to a better plan, the team learns that candor is useful. 

An organization can’t ask people to recover while adding to the load 

Leaders and teams can get better at handling pressure, but if the workload never eases and new priorities keep being added, the organization may need to change what it asks of them.  

The World Health Organization’s guidance on mental health at work addresses organizational changes alongside manager training and individual support. It identifies working conditions, including heavy workloads and limited control, as risks that organizations must assess and address. That’s particularly relevant to resilience: strengthening people’s coping skills helps, but the demands placed on them also need careful examination. 

One of the most useful responses to sustained pressure is a real trade-off. When a new priority arrives, leaders can ask what will be delayed, reduced, reassigned, or stopped. Without that decision, the new work is often absorbed by people who are already stretched. 

Organizations must also pay attention to recurring patterns. Does every major delivery depend on the same small group working beyond its normal capacity? Do teams repeatedly raise a problem, only to face it again the following quarter? Are capable managers spending so much time responding to immediate demands that they can’t support their people or prepare for what comes next? 

Barbier urges organizations to look beyond the resilience expected of leaders and their teams and examine circumstances that may over-extend that resilience. He says: “If a team has to make an extraordinary effort once, it may be responding to extraordinary circumstances. If it has to make that effort every quarter, month, or every day, leaders must ask who’s working beyond their limits just to keep things running.”  

When organizations act on these warning signs, they give their people a chance to recover before the next challenge arrives.  

What should boards look for? 

A leader who remains calm during a crisis may inspire confidence, but composure in one moment says little about how well that leader and their team will function through repeated demands. Boards need to look for patterns over time. 

Do problems surface early? 

Boards should notice whether material concerns reach the executive team while there is still room to act. If difficult news consistently arrives late, they should ask what makes people reluctant to raise it sooner. 

Do priorities change when circumstances do? 

When new demands arise, can leaders explain what they’ve delayed, stopped, or resourced differently? A growing list of priorities with no corresponding trade-offs may indicate that the organization is relying on extra effort to close the gap. 

Can performance be sustained? 

Results matter, but so does how they’re achieved. Boards can look for repeated periods of exhaustion, avoidable problems, or the loss of key people alongside otherwise strong results. They can then ask executives what support or changes in expectations would help the team keep performing well. 

Building capacity for what comes next 

“The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining,” John F. Kennedy told Congress in 1962. For leadership teams, that means paying attention while work is still getting done: noticing when pressure is changing decisions, acting on concerns teams raise, and giving people a chance to recover.   

Leaders and teams can’t always step away when demands rise, but they do need opportunities to pause, reconsider what is being asked of them, and recalibrate after an intense period. Organizations play a central role in making that possible. 

“The real test of resilience comes with the next challenge,” concludes Barbier.

“Leaders and teams need to come through today’s crisis with their judgment intact, their trust in each other strong, and enough energy to do good work again.”