Dr Patricia Armstrong’s reflections for 2025

The new year is always a time for reflection. It’s almost two years now since I left the role of CEO at Acosvo, a role I had grown with as the organisation grew and which I enjoyed immensely.

What could be better that working with inspiring, passionate, enthusiastic leaders and having the opportunity to give them a platform to connect, learn, share and develop?

Every journey starts with one step 

I’ve always felt I had to walk the talk, so when I started to explore the opportunity of academic learning to recognise the skills and expertise of charity leaders, alongside the chance to grow and learn, I couldn’t not be part of it. My 'study Buddies' Meg Wright and Martin Crewe made up our small sector cohort, and after three years of having our minds stretched and our fingers worn down from writing, we came out the other end with a whole new understanding of the academic world. 

All very well you may say, but what difference does that make at a sector level? We’ve all brought our learning back in different ways, but after writing a blog for Acosvo, it led to a contract to write a book as my way to share back with the sector! So, what did I learn from my studies, and how did I find going from leading an organisation to studying at doctoral level, to writing a book?

The more you know, the more you realise you don’t know

No matter how much we look after our wellbeing, life happens, and our resilience or ability to bounce back after a setback, can be weakened. This thinking led my decision to focus on leadership resilience for my studies.

As a very brief overview, most studies on leadership and resilience are not based in the third sector, they are mostly from the corporate sector, and mostly from the US. But I would suggest that much of what I’ve found could be transferrable, and in today’s world, I would argue that the third sector could be seen as leading the way in what I have called holistic leadership resilience.

I was studying resilient behaviours in third sector leadership as I wanted to focus on something we have control over (our behaviours), but the responses I got when I asked “what behaviours keep you resilient?” were much wider than I had expected. They were holistic in two ways:

Firstly, although I asked about behaviours, the answers were much wider than purely behaviours. I categorised these as Behaviours, Mindsets and Factors. It’s not just how you act, but how you think, as well as the environment you operate in. All of these elements have to be taken into account when considering resilience. As a shorthand:

Holistic Leadership Resilience (HLR) = B + M + F.

Secondly, although I asked about resilience as a leader in their role, the answers I got came from all parts of life. Being outdoors, exercising, having a laugh, playing with the kids, yoga, reading a good book… all these non-work elements came into play. Being able to make a difference, whether through work or not, finding your “tribe(s)” for peer support, knowing yourself (when to stop, what works for you etc) and acceptance of non-perfection (from yourself and others), were also included in the mix.

Change has never been so fast but will never be so slow again 

This is not as surprising as it may first seem. If you think how our working lives have changed, we now work at any time, from anywhere, from in-person to virtual, on any device – the whole concept of work-life balance has been turned on its head. So why shouldn’t what keeps us resilient to do this work not be much more holistic too? 

Although the pace of change has never been so fast, it will never be as slow again – so we must adapt to survive. With current pressures, the importance of resilience and wellbeing must be better understood so that in today’s world we can focus on what keeps us well, what enables us to bounce back without draining our resources and what helps us stay well to continue to do essential work. We can’t do this if we only focus on wellbeing and resilience at work, we must recognise that all elements of life come into play, ie holistic leadership resilience.

It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it

I had explored some new concepts while at Acosvo; from leadership exchange to active leadership, to interim exec programmes, so I knew that practical solutions were where I wanted to focus. I’ve developed the concept of holistic leadership resilience into practical exercises to help consider what keep the 'beaker of resilience' topped up. From thinking about what helps get you 'up the mountain' to the juggling analogy of identifying glass balls among the rubber ones, there’s lots of learning to be pulled from the research.

Each destination is but a doorway to another journey  

On leaving Acosvo, I spent some time in the public sector and have had forays into various different freelance and volunteering opportunities. To come back to one of the main findings of the research, finding my tribes was so important for me. Having academic peers at the same stage, a group of peers moving out of the CEO role at a similar time. And now, peers in my new community and my new learning opportunities (Gaelic and sailing!).

In writing this book, I wanted to do three things: tell the story of my own resilience journey through the process (I didn’t realise how apt studying resilience would be until the pandemic hit!); give sector leaders who may be considering studying alongside their role an insight into what it looks like; and have practical solutions I could share back with the sector.

Finally, a big thanks to all those who shared their wisdom, support and encouragement along the way.

Dr Patricia Armstrong OBE is a freelance leadership consultant and writer.

Her book Holistic Leadership Resilience is available here.