Leading for resilience: What we know from evidence, and three micro habits to get you started

Leading for resilience: What we know from evidence, and three micro habits to get you started

As someone working in health or aged care, you’re leading in one of Australia’s most demanding environments.

While the evidence base keeps growing (as Safe Work Australia pointed out in 2024), the Healthcare and Social Assistance industry had the highest number of serious claims on work-related mental health conditions of any industry in the previous 5 years.

Here are a few other things that are true: psychological risks at work are now squarely within leaders’ responsibility, burnout remains a measurable threat, and resilient teams consistently deliver safer care. Recent Australian reports, standards updates, and peer-reviewed studies suggest practical steps leaders can take immediately to enhance their own resilience and that of their teams.

What the research is saying

• Psychosocial risk and leadership: SafeWork Australia’s 2024 analysis highlights ongoing shortages of health professionals and elevated rates of serious claims in health and social assistance, conditions that heighten psychosocial hazards in the workplace unless leaders deliberately address workload, role clarity, and support.¹
• Burnout drivers and what helps: A 2024 NSW evidence check synthesised the drivers of burnout in health and social assistance, pinpointing promising, behaviourally informed interventions that include redesigning work, ensuring restorative breaks, and strengthening peer support.²
• Aged care workforce wellbeing: A 2025 systematic review of interventions for aged-care workers maps what improves mental wellbeing across micro (individual), meso (team/service), and macro (system) levels, which is helpful in targeting efforts where they are most effective.³
• Leadership style matters: A 2025 Australian study of hospital physicians found links between transformational/servant leadership and lower burnout, reinforcing that how we show up as leaders measurably affects clinician wellbeing.⁴

Three evidence-based habits to start this month

With that context, here are three evidence-based habits you can start this month.

1) Make psychological safety visible — in every shift, and at every meeting

Why it works: Psychological safety (people feeling safe to speak up, admit mistakes and ask for help) underpins learning and resilience. Recent healthcare reviews indicate that psychological safety is correlated with both workforce and patient outcomes. The NSQHS Clinical Governance Standard explicitly ties leadership to culture and safety systems.

Micro-habit to try this week:

• Name the learning zone: End every meeting with, “One thing we learned; one thing we’ll test.”

Leader guidelines:

• Close the loop on every voiced risk during meetings (even with “I don’t know yet, but here’s when I’ll update you”).
• Track and share a simple speak-up metric during meetings (e.g., number of ideas/risks surfaced per week) to signal that this behaviour is valued.

2) Embed reflective practice (e.g., Schwartz Rounds) to metabolise stress

Why it works: Reflection converts difficult experiences into shared learning and restores meaning to work, a key to building resilience. Australian evaluations of Schwartz Rounds (structured, story-based forums) report feasibility and perceived benefits for staff wellbeing, compassion, culture, as well as a positive impact across settings in the long term.

Micro-habit to try this week:

• Pilot one 50-minute reflective forum (at a ward or service level): three stories around a theme (“The shift I won’t forget”), with clinical and non-clinical staff invited.

Leader guidelines:

• Protect the time for Schwartz rounds — this communicates to staff how boundaries are being set and met.
• Close each round with “What changes tomorrow?” to translate reflection into small and actionable system improvements.

3) Treat psychosocial risk like any other safety risk — design to solve it, don’t just “cope”

Why it works: Australia’s strengthened focus on worker psychological health requires leaders to identify hazards, assess risks, and implement controls, rather than simply offering coping resources. Redesigning work (by focusing on manageable loads, clear roles, and restorative breaks) and strengthening peer support are high-yield actions that can reduce burnout.

Micro-habit to try this week:

• Fix one friction point per fortnight: Use a “remove, reduce, redesign” lens on admin load or task switching.

Leader guidelines:

• Document psychosocial risks alongside any other safety plan and report them to the board, along with clinical risks, especially regarding actions taken to minimise them.
• Share before/after indicators (sick leave, incident reporting latency, exit interview themes) that help capture improvements around psychosocial risks.

Where coaching fits

Leadership development works best when it is contextualised, reflective and supported over time. A 2024 mixed-methods systematic review on coaching for healthcare managers found that coaching can build leadership capability. In contrast, a 2025 umbrella review in BMJ Leader synthesised evidence that leadership development programs show benefits but require clearer, fit-for-purpose design and evaluation. Together, they suggest coaching is most effective when it is structured, goal-oriented and embedded in real work.

How coaching accelerates resilience habits

• From intent to routine: A coach helps you convert ideas (psychological-safety check-ins, reflective forums, break protection) into weekly rituals and dashboards. Having someone outside your immediate circle at work to whom you are accountable and need to report back to also enhances your commitment to sticking to a new practice.
• Cognitive load support: Coaching creates protected time to think systemically about psychosocial risks and to prioritise redesign over quick fixes. Many times, I have found leaders I coach feel uncomfortable around the ‘pause’ that coaching creates – and then lean into it fully when they see how impactful it can be in their roles.
• Shift in leadership style: Coaching can amplify transformational and servant-leadership behaviours, linked to lower burnout among physicians, by building self-awareness, empathy, and purpose-driven goal setting.

Bottom line

As we come to the end of another year full of accelerated change, strong and compassionate leadership isn’t a “nice to have” anymore — not just is it explicitly tied to staff wellbeing and patient outcomes, but it is also what helps build teams achieve greater success.

Investing in these micro habits that build resilience in your team (and in yourself) can help not just you in your role as a leader, but also future health and aged care leaders develop the skills they need to do their jobs in our ever-evolving world.

Ready to strengthen your leadership resilience?

Contact us to explore our coaching and leadership programs designed to help you and your teams perform and thrive under pressure.