The Stoic Edge for Managers - Episode 3 - The top skills for today's managers

What actually separates the managers who come through those periods — who not only survive them but genuinely grow through them — from the ones who don't?

It isn't talent. It isn't experience. It isn't even intelligence.

It's resilience.

This episode helps us as managers to build resilience. It isn't about trying to resist or get rid of what's going on around us....it's about displaying the virtues needed to cope with, and expand into, the challenges that we face every day

Thank you for listening. The Stoic Edge is available for all managers and others who feel it would be beneficial to them. Find out more about the company that produces them at www.mymanagementcoach.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

I want to start today with a story. A few years ago, I was working with a manager as his consultant. We'll call him David. He was sharp, experienced, and well liked by his team. He'd been in leadership roles for about 12 years, and he knew the IT industry inside out. On paper, he was exactly the kind of leaders organizations fight to keep. And then COVID hit. Virtually every night, his team was cut by a third. Two people he'd personally hired him give out for years were made redundant. His budget was slashed, his main people were furloughed, and its senior leadership, the people he trusted to have his back, went very quiet, very quickly. Ivy told me later that the six months that followed were the hardest of his professional life. Not because of the workload, but because of the mental weight of all of it, the constant pressure, the feeling that no matter how hard he worked, the ground beneath him kept shifting. The quiet, nagging voice that whispered You don't have the ability to cope with this. I suspect some of you know that voice. The question I want to explore today is this What actually separates the managers who come through those periods, who not only survive them but genuinely grow through them from the ones who don't. It isn't talent, it isn't experience, it's not even intelligence. It's resilience. And not the fluffy, motivational poster version of resilience, not just keep smiling through or every cloud has a silver lining. I mean the deep, practical, genuinely hard won ability to absorb pressure, adapt to adversity, and keep showing up as a leader and manager, with your values intact and your thinking clear, even when everything around you is telling you to fold. That quality, real resilience, is what we're talking about today. And nobody understood it better than the Stoics. Let me give you a bit of context because I think it really matters. The Stoic philosophers weren't theorizing about hardship from a place of comfort. These people lived it. Marcus Aurelius ruled an empire that was simultaneously fighting wars on multiple fronts, and enduring one of the most devastating plagues in ancient history, the Antonine plague, which is reckoned to have killed ten million people. He led through it. He thought through it, and he wrote about it honestly, privately, without any intention of any of it being read. In one of the most striking passages from his meditations, he wrote, You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you'll find strength. Listen to that again. You have power over your mind, not outside events. So not your budget, not your headcount, not the economy, your customers, the difficult team member. No, your mind. That is where your power lies. That's the territory the Stoics taught us to protect, develop, and master. Because it's the only territory that is really ours. Epictetus put it even more directly. Now remember, this was a man who was born into slavery, who had no freedom, no status, no possessions, and yet he became one of the most influential thinkers in history. He said it's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that really matters. Now I know it can sound like a croach of the day hung on the wall. I know that when you're three weeks into a crisis and you're running on five hours of sleep, being told that it's all about your reaction can feel a little unhelpful. But here's the thing. Epictetus wasn't dismissing the difficulty of what happens to us. He was pointing to something extraordinary. The gap between stimulus and response is where your leadership actually lives. That gap, that fraction of a second between something happening and you deciding how to meet it, is the space where resilient leaders are built. So, what does this actually look like in practice? Because I'm very aware we can talk theosophy all day, but what you need and what David needed are real tools for real moments. Let me give you three stoic practices that I believe are among the most powerful resilience builders available to any manager today. The first is what the Stoics called premeditatio malorum, the premeditation of adversity. In plain English, thinking deliberately about what could go wrong before it actually does. Now, I know that sounds counterintuitive. Most of us are taught that positive thinking is the key to success. And I'm not saying that's wrong, but the Stoics had another take. They believe that if you mentally rehearse the difficult scenarios in advance, that project that fails, the key person who leaves, the client who walks, you achieve two things simultaneously. First, you reduce the shock factor when hard things happen. Because you've already been there mentally. You've already asked yourself, what would I do? How would I handle it? What resources do I have? So that when the real moment arrives, you're not starting from scratch. Certainly, and this is the one that most people miss. When the bad thing doesn't happen, you feel a genuine sense of gratitude. You stop taking the good days for granted because you've reminded yourself that they're not guaranteed. Think about that in a business context. Before your next major project launch, before your next difficult conversation, or before your next presentation, spend five or ten minutes genuinely asking yourself, What's the worst realistic outcome here? And what would I do if that happened? This is not to catastrophize, not to spiral, but to prepare, because a prepared mind is a resilient mind. The second practice is the stoic concept of amor fati, love of fit. Now this one is harder, I won't pretend otherwise. Amor fati is the idea that you don't just accept what happens to you, you actively embrace it. You look at the setback, the failure, the disappointment, and instead of asking why is this happening to me? You ask what is making this possible? Seneca wrote, Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. David, the manager I told you about at the start, eventually found his footing again. And when I asked him what he'd what had shifted, he said something I'd never forgotten. He said I stopped fighting the COVID situation, and I started getting curious about it. And the moment I did that, I started seeing options I couldn't see before. Now that is amorfati in action. Not passive acceptance, but active engagement with reality as it is, not as you wish it would be. When you lose the client, when the project falls apart, when the team dynamic breaks down, the resilient leader doesn't wallow, they don't deny. They ask, right, this is where we are. What does this make possible that wasn't possible before? And the third practice is one of the simplest and most powerful. The daily reflection. Marcus Aurelius did it every morning and every evening. He would ask himself two questions. In the morning, he'd ask, What do I need to bring to today? In the evening, where did I fall short of my own standards? And what will I do differently tomorrow? He didn't do this as self punishment. He did it as self improvement. Honest, quiet, private, and completely transformative over time. I challenge every manager listening to this today to try it for thirty days. Just five minutes in the morning, five minutes in the evening, no special journal, no elaborate system. Just you and an honest question. Because here is what the Stoics understood that modern leadership culture sometimes forgets. You cannot build resilience externally. You can only build it internally through consistent intentional reflection and practice. I often use the gym analogy. You don't get physically fit by reading about exercise. You don't even get fit by going to the gym. You get fit by doing the work consistently over time, even on the days and especially on the days when you don't feel like it. Mental resilience works exactly the same way. Let me bring us back to David one more time because his story has a second chapter. About three months after lockdown was lifted, something shifted. His remaining team, smaller now, started outperforming. Not because of the circumstances had improved dramatically, but because David had. He'd started his morning reflection practice. He'd stopped trying to control things he couldn't control and focused obsessively on the things that he could. He'd started being more honest with his team about the pressure they were all under, and in doing so had created a culture where people felt safe to be honest with him. He told me, I think the lessons from the pandemic are the best things that ever happened to me as a leader. I would never have said that at the time, of course, but it forced me to find out what I was actually made of. That is resilience. It's not the absence of difficulty, it's the transformation through it. So here is what I want you to take away from today. Three things clear and simple. Number one, your power as a manager does not live in your circumstances. It lives in your response to them. Protect that response like it's the most valuable asset you have. Because it is. Number two. Start your premeditato malorum this week. Pick one area of your professional life where you're feeling exposed or uncertain, and spend ten minutes thinking honestly about the worst realistic outcome and what you would do. You'll walk away less anxious and more prepared. And number three, begin the daily reflection practice morning and evening. Two honest questions thirty days. I genuinely believe it'll be one of the most impactful habits you ever build as a manager. Seneca, one of the greatest stoic writers, left us with a line that I keep coming back to, especially in difficult times. He said this Difficulties strengthen the mind as labor does the body. Your challenges are not obstacles to your management. They're the making of it. Every pressure you navigate with clarity, every set that you absorb with grace, every difficult day you meet with intention, that is the real work. That is what resilient management actually looks like in the 2020s. Not perfect, not unaffected, but unbroken. And that, I would argue, is exactly the kind of manager and leader the world needs more of right now. Because the most resilient version of you is already in there. Stoicism just helps you find it.