Co-worker and office politics can drain resilience

What is the biggest test for resilience at work and where do workers draw their reserves from to overcome these obstacles? This survey from Harvard Business Review, of 835 employees in Britain, points to self-reliance.

Employees draw on their own internal resilience 90% of the time to overcome workplace challenges, compared to their organisational support just close to 10% of the time.

By considerable margin the biggest drain comes from managing difficult people or office politics (75%), followed by personal criticism (60%). It is clear we feel the impact and remember criticism much longer than praise.

These findings align with the widely known fact that people leave bosses rather than jobs.

The most resilient are able to do the following:

1. Accept reality
2. Develop a deep belief that life is meaningful
3. Cultivate an uncanny ability to improvise ​

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Link to full Harvard Business Review article: What Resilience Means, and Why It Matters