Dyson College of Arts and Sciences
Issue link: http://dysoncollege.uberflip.com/i/128987
obviously not always achieved, but a goal which any competent senior management team needs to think about. Similarly, when we speak about leadership, we have always been most impressed by those leaders who have been able to inspire their followers to fight on in the face of reversals, defeats, and tragedies. Effective leaders are effective precisely because they are able to inspire us to be resilient and to find the energy to strive, to continue, and to prevail even in the most trying circumstances. In summary then, it seems that a strong argument can be made that the issues that we encounter when we speak about building more resilient institutions have always been with us in one guise or another, and that by introducing the construct of resilience into the conversation we have not really added much value given the long-standing concerns of such fields as leadership, general management, and crisis management. Conclusion The issues discussed in this paper were stimulated by my attending an interesting and thought-provoking "Summit on Resilience" conference held at Pace University in New York City on January 11, 2012. One of the goals of such a conference is to stimulate thinking, and hopefully critical thinking, on the part of participants. This paper discusses the issues of unclear definition and measurement related to the construct of resilience, and the possible obfuscation of more basic or important underlying problems or strengths when we focus on the absence or presence of resilience to explain failures and successes. The paper also considered the issue of the novelty or uniqueness of society's interest in building more resilient institutions, along with the desire to bring it about through public-private partnerships. Our interest in enhancing resilience is seen here as not being clearly distinguishable from other, older and more familiar concerns such as how to manage or how to lead organizations and people well, or how to manage crises effectively. References Morrow, I. (2008). A case of executive coaching in the Bible: Lessons in managing, staffing, empowering, giving and receiving feedback, and managing stress. The International Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Change Management. Vol. 8, No. 1. P. 275-280. Robbins, S.P, & Coulter, M. (2012). Management (11th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Stein, J. (editor) (1973). The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, New York, NY: Random House. Whetten, D.A. & Cameron, K.S. (2002). Developing Management Skills (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. 36