How to build workplace resilience through connection, community, and leadership

Workplace resilience is often talked about as a personal trait — something employees need to develop so they can handle pressure, manage stress and bounce back from setbacks. But that definition is too narrow, and in many workplaces, it is part of the problem.

In this episode of The HR Issue podcast, host Kylie Terrell speaks with former Wallaby and Running for Resilience founder Ben Alexander about what resilience really looks like in practice. Together, they explore burnout, belonging, identity, leadership and the role that movement and community play in helping people navigate adversity.

The central idea is both simple and powerful: resilience is not something people build alone. It is built through connection — with others, with purpose, and with communities that make people feel supported, seen, and able to contribute.

For HR leaders and people managers, that reframing matters. If resilience is relational rather than purely individual, then creating a resilient workplace is not about telling people to toughen up. It's about designing environments where people feel safe, connected, and capable of sustaining performance over time.

What is workplace resilience?

Workplace resilience is often misunderstood as grit, endurance, or the ability to absorb more pressure. But as this conversation makes clear, resilience is not just about coping in isolation. It's about having the support structures, relationships, and sense of belonging that help people get through challenges and recover from them.

That is a crucial distinction for leaders. When resilience is reduced to an individual mindset, organisations risk putting the burden on employees to manage conditions that may actually be systemic: overload, isolation, poor support, unsustainable expectations, or weak team connection. A healthier definition of resilience asks not only how a person is coping, but what relationships and environments are helping them cope.

Why resilience is not just an individual skill

One of the strongest themes in the episode is that resilience is often treated like a personality trait when it's more accurately understood as something social.

Kylie opens the conversation by challenging the way resilience is commonly framed. We often tell people to push harder, manage stress better, or bounce back faster, but increasingly, she argues, resilience is something “we build together.” That shift moves the conversation away from self-protection and toward shared responsibility.

Ben reinforces this throughout the episode. Reflecting on setbacks in sport and life, he explains that every time he has overcome adversity, it has been through the support of others, family, teammates, friends, or community. In that sense, resilience is not simply inner strength. It's the ability to draw strength from trusted connections when times are hard.

“We’ve got to stop looking at resilience as this individual character trait. If someone is acting in a way that you would label as unresilient, we need to start asking what connection or relationships are missing in their life.”

This matters deeply in the workplace. Employees don't become resilient because they attended a one-off workshop or downloaded a mindfulness app. They become more resilient when they have leaders who create trust, colleagues who provide support, and cultures where people can be honest about struggle without fear of judgment.

How connection and community build resilience at work

If resilience is social, then connection and community are not nice-to-haves. They are core drivers of workplace wellbeing.

Ben’s journey into founding Running for Resilience speaks directly to this. After retiring from professional rugby, he found himself struggling with grief, anxiety, and a loss of identity. A friend invited him to Parkrun, and while the run itself mattered, what helped most was what came with it: shared movement, coffee afterwards, conversation, and the feeling of being around other people.

That experience eventually became Running for Resilience, a community initiative that now brings hundreds of people together each week through running, yoga, pickleball, paddleboarding, and other shared activities. The common thread is not elite performance. It's belonging.

This idea translates directly into workplace culture. People are more likely to stay engaged, contribute meaningfully, and recover from setbacks when they feel they matter to a group. That means workplaces need to think more intentionally about how connection is created, not only through formal team structures, but through rituals, shared moments, and environments where relationships can develop naturally.

What leaders can learn about resilience from sport

Sport is often associated with toughness, but this episode shows that one of its most useful workplace lessons is actually about identity and support.

Ben reflects candidly on how his identity became too tightly wrapped up in rugby. Over time, he shifted from being someone who played rugby to someone who was rugby. When performance faltered, that narrow identity made it far harder to cope.

That lesson is highly relevant for leaders and employees alike. When a person’s self-worth is tied entirely to work, setbacks can feel overwhelming. But when people have multiple sources of meaning, family, friendships, communities, hobbies, or contribution outside of work, they are less vulnerable when one area becomes difficult.

“When work becomes your whole sense of self-worth, it just makes you fragile. When things don’t go well, especially [with] stuff outside your control... I feel very grateful to have learned that lesson the hard way early in life. I think it’s something maybe people don’t realise until they retire in their fifties or sixties and then they try and rediscover who they are without their work.”

Leaders can take two important lessons from this. First, they should be cautious about rewarding over-identification with work as a badge of commitment. Second, they should actively model a broader, healthier sense of identity themselves. People notice when leaders have boundaries, outside interests, and sustainable habits. That example shapes culture more powerfully than policy alone.

Why movement and shared experiences support mental wellbeing

A particularly valuable part of the discussion is the role movement plays in improving mental wellbeing and creating the conditions for better conversations.

Ben explains that movement is not just about physical health. It creates a neurochemical benefit, helps reduce stress, and, when done with others, builds a sense of connection. More importantly, it creates an environment where people often find it easier to talk.

That side-by-side dynamic matters. Whether it's running, walking, or another activity, conversations can feel less intense and less confrontational when they happen alongside someone rather than directly across from them. People often open up more naturally when there is less pressure and more ease.

For leaders, this is a useful reminder that meaningful support does not always need to happen in formal settings. A walk-and-talk meeting, a casual coffee after a team activity, or simply creating space outside the usual performance conversation can unlock a very different kind of trust.

“When you’re just doing some exercise with a trusted friend, there’s that space to be vulnerable and stuff just bubbles up. I’ve heard over and over again that people have had amazing conversations that have helped change their life all through exercise.”

The link between belonging, burnout, and employee wellbeing

Belonging is one of the most underrated contributors to resilience. When people feel connected to others and to something larger than themselves, they are more likely to feel motivated, supported, and psychologically safe.

Ben states that the opposite is also true. Isolation, disconnection, and the feeling of being a burden can quickly erode wellbeing. 

“If you are living a life where you’re able to contribute to your team, to your community, to your family, you don’t feel like a burden... The bit that’s helped me most is being able to contribute and give back to the community so other people can get the benefits that I got.”

This is where burnout and resilience intersect. Burnout is not just about doing too much work. It's often about doing too much without enough support, recognition, or connection. A resilient workplace culture does not simply help people endure stress. It reduces the conditions that make stress so corrosive in the first place.

How leaders can create a more resilient workplace culture

The conversation offers several practical takeaways for leaders who want to support resilience in a more meaningful way.

Create opportunities for connection

Not every intervention needs to be expensive or complex. Walk-and-talks, shared team rituals, simple community moments, and peer support spaces can all strengthen connection.

Reward sustainable behaviour

Ben makes the point that leaders often reward people for relieving short-term pressure, even when the way they do it is unsustainable. Resilient cultures reward consistency, boundaries, and healthy performance over heroic effort.

Make it safe to be human

Trust grows when people feel they can bring their whole selves to work. That means creating environments where vulnerability is not punished and where support is not seen as weakness.

Encourage broader identity

Employees are healthier and more resilient when work is important but not all-consuming. Leaders can model and normalise this by showing that life outside work matters too.

Celebrate progress, not perfection

Small wins build momentum. Recognising effort, consistency, and positive progress helps people keep going without creating unrealistic standards of perfection.

Why sustainable leadership matters more than heroic effort

One of the most important ideas in the episode is that consistency beats intensity. That applies to wellbeing, team culture, and leadership itself.

Many organisations still celebrate heroic effort — the person who works late, takes on more, fixes everything, and absorbs pressure for the team. But over time, those behaviours are not signs of resilience. They are often signs of risk.

Sustainable leadership looks different. It values steadiness, healthy limits, repeatable behaviours, and the ability to show up well over time. It recognises that short bursts of overperformance may feel helpful in the moment, but they often come at a cost later.

For HR leaders, this may be one of the clearest actions to take: look closely at what gets praised, promoted, and repeated. Culture follows reinforcement.

Final thoughts on building resilience through connection

This episode of The HR Issue offers an important and timely reframing of resilience at work. Resilience is not about asking people to become tougher in the face of rising pressure. It's about helping them feel more connected to themselves, to each other, and to communities that make support possible.

For leaders, that means moving away from resilience as rhetoric and toward resilience as design. Design for belonging. Design for sustainable performance. Design for real conversations. Design for contribution.

Because the most resilient workplaces are not the ones where people simply learn to cope alone. They are the ones where no one has to.

Stay tuned for the next episode and catch up with previous episodes below!