The Paradoxical Power of Adversity: Why Resilience Elevates Leadership
Debbie Morrison • August 23, 2023

In a world enamoured with success stories, it might seem counterintuitive to champion failure and adversity. However, if one delves deeper into the annals of great leadership, a surprising element emerges—resilience. There's a compelling case to be made that the crucible of setbacks and challenges actually moulds the most effective leaders. In this blog we explore why.


Our Love Affair with Success

For many, success is the ultimate goal. It's the indicator that one is competent, valued, and in control. But the road to true leadership often winds through valleys of failure. Thomas Edison, when developing the light bulb, once remarked, "I haven’t failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” If Edison lacked resilience, would we remember him today?

Leadership isn't about avoiding pitfalls; it's about navigating and growing from them.


Resilience as the Cornerstone of Effective Leadership

In the contemporary business world, leadership indicators have evolved beyond the mere ability to manage teams or hit financial targets. One such significant indicator, as underscored by research, is resilience. Here's a deeper look at why resilience is not only important but also transformative in the realm of leadership.


Resilience: More Than Just Bouncing Back

Resilience, as highlighted by the Harvard Business Review, isn't just about recovery; it's about thriving amidst adversity. And when it comes to leadership, this attribute can be the difference between a good leader and a great one. 


The Science Behind Resilience and Leadership

A plethora of studies in organisational psychology have illuminated the undeniable link between resilience and an array of positive professional outcomes. Among these:


Heightened Job Performance: Resilient leaders tend to approach challenges as opportunities for growth. They adapt, evolve, and ultimately lead their teams to successes even in turbulent times.


Reduced Burnout: Burnout has become endemic in today's high-stress work environment. Resilient leaders, however, are better equipped to manage stress, ensure work-life balance, and thus mitigate the symptoms and effects of burnout.


Increased Job Satisfaction: Satisfaction isn't just derived from success; it's also about overcoming hurdles. Resilient leaders find fulfilment in navigating challenges, which translates to higher overall job satisfaction.


The Crucible of Adversity: Moulding Effective Leaders

Adversity isn't just a challenge; it's a classroom. It shapes leaders in multiple, profound ways:


Empathy as a Leadership Tool
Leaders who have navigated the stormy seas of professional or personal difficulties develop a heightened sense of empathy. This is more than just understanding or sympathising—it's about genuinely feeling the team's struggles.

Such empathetic leaders become invaluable assets for organisations. They foster environments where team members feel seen, heard, and understood. This creates a bedrock of trust, making teams more cohesive and more willing to take risks, confident in the knowledge that their leader understands and supports them.


Grit: The Silent Powerhouse
Angela Duckworth’s research on grit has revolutionised our understanding of success. Grit isn't just about raw strength or endurance; it's about maintaining passion and perseverance for goals that last a lifetime.

Adversity instils this very grit in leaders. Each failure, each setback, and each challenge faced and overcome adds another layer to a leader's reservoir of grit. Such leaders not only set high standards for themselves but also inspire their teams to adopt a similar attitude of unwavering commitment to their goals.


Innovation Born from Challenge
When traditional paths are blocked by obstacles, true leaders don't just look for another path—they create one. Adversity, in this sense, becomes a powerful catalyst for innovation.


Leaders forged in the furnace of adversity are not confined by conventional wisdom or traditional methodologies. They think outside the box, encouraging their teams to do the same. This culture of innovative thinking often leads to groundbreaking ideas, solutions, and strategies that set the organisation apart in a competitive marketplace.



The food & beverage industry is fraught with unpredictability and fierce competition. New businesses come and go, often within the span of just a year. Yet, the tales of resilience and redemption in this sector are incredibly inspiring. Let's dive into some real-world examples of individuals from the food & beverage industry who faced adversity head-on and emerged triumphant.


Howard Schultz: Starbucks

Before Starbucks became the global coffeehouse chain synonymous with morning routines, it faced its fair share of troubles. Howard Schultz, the chairman and former CEO, had a vision of turning Starbucks from a mere coffee bean seller into a café experience inspired by his travels in Italy. Schultz's proposal was initially rejected, leading him to leave and start his chain, Il Giornale. However, when Starbucks later faced financial difficulties, Schultz returned, acquired the company, and transformed it into the coffee empire we know today. Through this journey, Schultz's resilience and unyielding belief in his vision were evident.


Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield: Ben & Jerry’s

Ben & Jerry’s, a name synonymous with innovative ice cream flavours, was founded by childhood friends Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield. Before they struck gold with their ice cream parlour, they faced several setbacks. Both Ben and Jerry faced failures in their previous endeavours—Ben with several art-related ventures and Jerry with medical school rejections. Instead of succumbing to these setbacks, they took a $5 correspondence course on ice cream making and set up their first ice cream parlour in a renovated gas station. Their resilience and commitment to their brand, despite numerous challenges including big corporation competition and financial struggles, turned Ben & Jerry’s into a household name.


Sir Thomas Johnstone Lipton: Lipton Tea

Sir Thomas Lipton, the founder of the world-famous Lipton tea brand, was no stranger to adversity. Before he built his tea empire, Lipton, born to impoverished Irish-Scottish parents, worked in a number of low-paying jobs. He then decided to open his grocery store, and though it was successful, he faced stiff competition. To differentiate himself, Lipton decided to directly purchase tea from producers, reducing costs. He travelled to Sri Lanka and bought tea estates, ensuring the supply at a lower price. His resilience and innovative approach to addressing the challenge of competition led to the birth of the globally recognized Lipton brand.


Anita Roddick: The Body Shop

While The Body Shop might be more associated with cosmetics than food & beverage, its founder Anita Roddick's story of resilience in business is worth noting. Anita opened the first Body Shop in 1976 with the aim of making an income for herself and her two daughters while her husband travelled. Faced with limited resources, she used minimalistic packaging and championed the refilling of containers. Her genuine commitment to environmental issues and refusal to advertise gave her brand a unique identity. Despite facing heavy competition from big cosmetic brands and backlash for some of her unconventional decisions, Roddick's resilience made The Body Shop an international success.


Building Resilience

So, how can leaders cultivate resilience? It begins with a mindset that views failure not as a dead end but as a learning opportunity. Embracing failure requires courage, introspection, and a willingness to adapt.


Accepting Failure as Part of Growth: By accepting that failure is a natural part of growth and innovation, leaders can foster a culture that encourages risk-taking and creativity.


Celebrate Failures as Learning Opportunities: Instead of penalising mistakes, dissect them. What lessons can be learned? How can they inform future decisions?


Creating Supportive Environments: Fostering an organisational culture that supports risk-taking and learning from failure encourages everyone to push the boundaries of their potential.


Invest in Mental Wellness: Resilience is not just about endurance; it's about recovery. Support mental health initiatives that give leaders the tools to bounce back.



In the corporate lexicon, resilience is often misconstrued as mere endurance. It's time we viewed it for what it truly is—an invaluable trait, honed by adversity, that equips leaders with the empathy, grit, and innovation to lead effectively.


Resilience doesn’t just prepare leaders to weather the storm; it empowers them to change the world. As you chart your leadership journey, embrace adversity. For in its crucible, you'll find the very essence of transformative leadership.

Your Culture Report Won’t Show You This

By John Elliott • June 6, 2025
On paper, they were fully resourced. No complaints logged. No formal red flags. Delivery metrics holding steady. But behind closed doors, the signs were there. Delays. Fatigue. Silence in meetings where pushback used to live. And a growing sense that key people were leaning out, emotionally, if not yet physically. When the cracks finally showed, the conclusion was predictable: “We need more people.” But that wasn’t the real problem. The problem was trust. And most organisations never see it until it’s too late. The Hidden Cost of Disengagement In Gallup’s 2023 global workplace report , only 23% of employees worldwide reported being actively engaged at work. A staggering 59% identified as “quiet quitting”, psychologically detached, going through the motions, doing only what their job description demands. Source: Gallup Global Workplace Report 2023 Disengagement is expensive. But it’s also quiet. It doesn’t show up on a balance sheet. It doesn’t send a Slack message. Disengagement isn’t new, just silenced. And in executive teams, it looks different. It looks like polite agreement in strategy meetings. It looks like leaders shielding their teams from unrealistic demands, instead of confronting the system causing them. It looks like performance metrics still being met… while people emotionally check out. The issue isn’t always capability. It’s safety. Psychological, political, and professional. Many senior leaders don’t raise concerns, not because the problem isn’t real, but because they don’t believe they’ll be heard, supported, or protected if they do. And this is where the failure begins. The Leadership Lie No One Talks About We talk a lot about leadership capability. About experience, commercial acumen, execution strength. But we don’t talk enough about context. Every leadership hire walks into a culture they didn’t create. They inherit unwritten rules, quiet alliances, and legacy power structures. If those dynamics are broken, or if trust is fractured at the top, no amount of capability will compensate. According to a 2022 Deloitte mid-market survey, 64% of executives said culture was their top strategic priority. But only 27% said they actually measured it in a meaningful way. We say culture matters. But we rarely structure around it. And so new leaders walk in with pressure to perform, but little real insight into what the role will cost them emotionally, politically, or personally. We Don’t Hire for Trust. And It Shows. In executive search, the conversation is often dominated by pedigree and “fit.” But fit is often a euphemism for sameness. And sameness doesn't build trust, it maintains comfort. We rarely ask: Does this leader know how to build trust vertically and horizontally? Can they operate in a low-trust environment without becoming complicit? Will they challenge inherited silence, or unconsciously uphold it? Instead, we hire for confidence and clarity, traits that often mask what’s broken, rather than reveal it. And when those hires fail? We call it a mismatch. Or we cite the usual: “lack of alignment,” “wasn’t the right time,” “they didn’t land well with the team.” But the truth is often uglier: They were never set up to succeed. And no one told them until it was too late. The Cultural Infrastructure Is Missing One of the most damaging myths in leadership hiring is that great leaders will “make it work.” That if they’re tough enough, experienced enough, skilled enough, they’ll overcome any organisational dysfunction. But high-performance isn’t just personal. It’s systemic. It requires psychological safety. A clear mandate. The backing to make hard decisions. The freedom to speak the truth before it becomes a PR problem. When that infrastructure isn’t there, when the real power dynamics are unspoken, good leaders stop speaking too. And the silence spreads. What Trust Breakdown Really Looks Like Often, the signs of a trust breakdown don’t show up in dramatic ways. They surface subtly in patterns of underperformance that are easy to misread or excuse. You start to notice project delays, but no one flags the root cause. Teams keep things moving, quietly compensating for the bottlenecks rather than surfacing them. Not because they’re careless, but because they’ve learned that early honesty doesn’t always earn support. New leaders hesitate to make bold calls. Not because they lack conviction, but because the last time they did, they were left exposed. Board reports look flawless. Metrics track nicely. But spend five minutes on the floor, and the energy tells a different story. These are not resource issues. They’re relationship issues. And the data backs it. According to Gallup’s 2023 State of the Global Workplace report , just 23% of employees worldwide are actively engaged. Worse, around 60% are “quiet quitting.” That’s not just disengagement. It’s people doing only what’s safe, only what’s required, because trust has quietly eroded. Gallup also found that managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement, a staggering figure that reinforces just how pivotal leadership trust is. When people don’t feel psychologically safe, they shut down. Not dramatically. Quietly. Invisibly. What’s breaking isn’t the org chart. It’s the ability to speak plainly and be heard. And by the time it’s visible? The damage is already done, and someone calls for a restructure. “Low engagement is estimated to cost the global economy $8.8 trillion, 9% of global GDP.” Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2023 So What’s the Real Takeaway? If you’re seeing performance issues, before you jump to headcount, ask a different question: Do the leaders in this business feel safe enough to tell the truth? Because if they don’t, the data you’re reading isn’t real. And if they do, but you’re not acting on it, then they’ll stop telling you. Leadership doesn’t fail in obvious ways anymore. It fails in the gap between what people know and what they’re allowed to say. And the price of that silence? Missed opportunity. Reputational damage. Cultural decay. Sometimes, the problem isn’t who you hired. It’s what you’ve made it unsafe to say.

The Energy’s Gone, But Everything Still Looks Fine

By John Elliott • May 27, 2025
Why Culture Decay in FMCG Is a Silent Threat to Performance It doesn’t start with resignations. It starts with something much quieter. A head of operations stops raising small problems in weekly meetings. A sales lead no longer defends a risky new SKU. A team member who used to push ideas now just delivers what they’re asked. Nothing breaks. Nothing explodes. It just... slows. And from the outside, everything still looks fine. The illusion of stability In food and beverage manufacturing, where teams run lean and pressure is constant, performance often becomes the proxy for culture. If products are shipping, if margins are intact, if reviews are clean, the assumption is: we're good. But that assumption is dangerous. According to Gallup's 2023 global workplace report, only 23% of employees worldwide are actively engaged, while a staggering 59% are "quiet quitting ", doing just enough to get by, with no emotional investment. And in Australia? Engagement has declined three years in a row. In a mid-market FMCG business, those numbers rarely show up on dashboards. But they show up in other ways: New ideas stall at the concept phase Team members stop challenging assumptions Execution becomes rigid instead of agile Everyone is "aligned" but no one is energised And by the time the board sees a drop in revenue, the belief that once drove the business is already gone. The emotional cost of cultural silence One thing we don’t talk about enough is what this does to leadership. When energy drains, leaders often become isolated. Not because they want to be, but because the organisation has lost the instinct to challenge, question, or stretch. I’ve seen CEOs second-guessing themselves in rooms full of agreement. Seen GMs miss red flags because nobody wanted to be "the problem". Seen founders mistake quiet delivery for deep buy-in. The emotional toll of unspoken disengagement is real. You’re surrounded by people doing their jobs. But no one’s really in it with you. And eventually, leaders stop stretching too. We train people to disengage without realising it Here’s the contradiction that most organisations won’t admit: We say we want initiative, but we reward obedience. The safest people get promoted The optimists get extra work The truth-tellers get labelled difficult So people learn to conserve energy. They learn not to challenge ideas that won’t land. They learn not to flag risks that won’t be heard. And over time, they stop showing up with their full selves. This isn't resistance. It's protection. And it becomes the default when innovation is punished, risk isn't buffered, and "alignment" becomes code for silence. Boards rarely see it in time Boards don’t ask about belief. They ask about performance. But belief is what drives performance. When culture begins to fade, it doesn't look like chaos. It looks like calm. It looks like compliance. But underneath, the organisation is hollowing out. By the time a board notices the energy is gone, it’s often because the financials have turned, and by then, the people who could've helped reverse the trend have already left. In a 2022 Deloitte study on mid-market leadership, 64% of executives said culture was their top priority, yet only 27% said they measured it with any rigour . If you don’t track it, you won’t protect it. And if you don’t protect it, don’t be surprised when it disappears. The real risk: you might not get it back Here’s what no one likes to admit: Not all cultures recover. You can try rebrands. You can run engagement campaigns. You can roll out leadership frameworks and off-sites and feedback platforms. But if belief has been neglected for too long, the quiet ones you depended on, the culture carriers, the stretchers, the informal leaders, they’re already checked out. Some have left. Some are still there physically but not emotionally. And some have started coaching others to play it safe. Once that happens, you're not rebuilding. You're replacing. So what do you do? Don’t listen for noise. Listen for absence. Absence of challenge. Absence of stretch. Absence of belief. Ask yourself: When was the last time someone in the business pushed back? Not rudely, but bravely? When did someone offer an idea that made others uncomfortable? When did a leader admit they were unsure and ask for help? Those are your indicators. Because healthy culture isn’t silent. It’s alive. It vibrates with tension, disagreement, contribution and care. If everything looks fine, but no one’s really leaning in? That’s your problem. And by the time it shows up in the numbers,t might already be too late.