The Role of Resilience in Leadership and Culture

This report reviews the empirical literature on resilience to help educational leaders understand the attitude and skill of resiliency and, ultimately, impact district culture.

Resilience is a popular concept, particularly in times of crisis such as the years during and following the COVID-19 pandemic. However, resilience is rarely defined and is often confused with complementary mindsets such as grit, perseverance, and self-efficacy. Additionally, educational leaders have been called on to display resilient leadership with limited tools into how to develop this leadership approach. The following report reviews the empirical literature on resilience to help educational leaders understand the attitude and skill and ultimately impact district culture.

To support AASA's mission of developing school leader capacity and building support for mental health, AASA has partnered with Hanover Research to prepare a series of reports on the role of resilience for district and school leaders. Synthesizing empirical literature on resilience in education and related industries, this report includes the following sections:

• Section I: Understanding Resilience defines resilience, examines the types of resilience and the relationship between resilience and related positive psychology concepts, and discusses factors that contribute to building resilience.
• Section II: The Role of Resilience in Leadership examines the literature on resilient leadership and explores the impacts of educational leaders’ resilience on teachers, students, and school culture.

The second report in the series discusses the key attributes and skills of nimble leadership, as well as the role of nimble leadership in educational settings and school culture.

The third report in the series discusses the key competencies of resonant leadership and the importance of resonant leadership for superintendent wellbeing and school culture.