Building Proactive Resilience

In our latest blog, Leadership Development Specialist Andrew Veevers discusses our recent Mental Toughness virtual learning sessions, which Andrew delivered.

In recent weeks, ION Leadership has been taking a number of sustainability ideas and turning them into action, exploring potential future masterclasses, with the vast amount of expertise within the team.

Building on our ethos of experiential learning, we advertised a two-part event, focussing on one of the fastest-growing skills needed in the modern world - Mental Toughness and building pro-active resilience.  

Delivered over two 90min. sessions, we introduced the fundamentals of the topic, discussing how Mental Toughness is measured, the origins and validation of the subject, within the first discussion.

Based on the findings and observations of Jim Loehr EdD. and Prof. Peter Clough and brought to life by AQR International, there is now a globally recognised measure available, used by elite athletes to business owners and leaders, all over the world, which helped form the basis of conversation.

The first workshop continued by exploring the 4C’s and 8 Factors of Mental Toughness and left the group with some self-reflection on where they felt their strengths and areas of development would be, using this new knowledge.

The second masterclass was more interactive, sharing around 20 activities and exercises that can be completed to build personal and team Mental Toughness, encouraging the group to purposefully practice their chosen activities, with results visible within 3-4 weeks.

This focus was broken down into The Six Interventions of Mental Toughness - Positive Thinking, Goal Setting, Attention Control, Visualisation, Anxiety Control and Self Awareness.

In tune with the delivery style, we encouraged the group to think of additional exercises within these six areas, to build a personal toolkit of future activities, once they were familiar with the concept.  This was well received by the group, with individuals staying on the virtual delivery after both sessions, to get some 1:2:1 time with us and have further questions answered.

We are really proud to have delivered this event, with the feedback being collected and reviewed to support further exploration of potential sustainability topics going forward.

To take a group of over 20 business owners, leaders, and consultants through their first experience(s) of this subject is just one of the many positives that were discussed in the de-brief, as we continue to grow our reach and be a trusted partner for all things leadership.

Keep an eye on our website and social media channels - Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook - for information on future virtual learning sessions. If you are interested in finding out more about our upcoming fully-funded leadership programmes, visit our Courses page.