Resilience, Flexibility and Agility
Free online resources curated for charity and not for profit organisations
In environments of constant change, funding pressures, and rising demands, resilience, flexibility, and agility are no longer just individual traits but essential organisational capabilities.
- Resilience supports wellbeing and sustained performance under pressure.
- Flexibility enables organisations to adapt to real-world constraints.
- Agility allows teams to pivot creatively and embrace new approaches, especially as technologies and operating environments evolve.
The resources and content highlighted on this page are aligned to the Building Tomorrow’s Skills in Today’s Charities report, written by Andy Lancaster for the Charity Learning Consortium.
5 Skill Development Tactics
Resilience, Flexibility and Agility
- Position resilience, flexibility and agility as organisational safeguards: Show how they link to key KPIs, reduce risk, protect service continuity and strengthen teams.
- Anchor the case in data and real consequences: Connect gaps in these capabilities to turnover, burnout, stalled change and missed funding opportunities.
- Encourage and support leaders to develop these behaviours: Role modelling sets the tone, so provide practical and accessible resources for busy managers.
- Co-create a shared skills model: Define what resilience, flexibility and agility look like in context and identify how progress and impact can be tracked.
- Embed these capabilities into the workflow: Use reflective practice for individual and team activities to build these skills through regular habit, not one-off courses.
Top resources…
How do you define resilience?
Resilience, as explained by Liggy Webb, is a learnable life skill built on personal responsibility, optimistic thinking, and adaptability that enables individuals to effectively cope with change and adversity.
Leadership: Why agility matters
Lasting change comes not from willpower alone but from being an agile learner with a growth mindset who reflects on and applies lessons from experience.
Tips to increase your resilience and positivity
Jo Thackwray shares her top tips to help you and your learners boost your positivity, build resilience and reduce overwhelm.
Articles
American Psychological Association (2012) Building your resilience, American Psychological Association.
Available at: https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience/building-your-resilience
Centre for Creative Leadership (no date c) Recovery Practices to Foster Resilience & Prevent burnout, CCL.
Available at: https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/improve-performance-foster-resilience-prevent-burnout-recovery-practices/
Craig, H. (2019) Resilience in the Workplace: How to be Resilient at Work, PositivePsychology.com.
Available at: https://positivepsychology.com/resilience-in-the-workplace/
Cross, R.C., Dillon, K. (2024) The 7 types of people you need in your life to be resilient, ideas.ted.com.
Available at: https://ideas.ted.com/the-7-types-of-people-you-need-to-be-resilient-microstresses/
Entelechy Academy Limited (2023a) Skill 3: Resilience, flexibility, and agility, LinkedIn.
Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/skill-3-resilience-flexibility-agility-entelechyacademy/
Human Focus (2025) Ways to Boost Employee Resilience, Human Focus.
Available at: https://humanfocus.co.uk/blog/ways-to-boost-employee-resilience/
Jay, M. (2018) 8 tips to help you become more resilient, ideas.ted.com.
Available at: https://ideas.ted.com/8-tips-to-help-you-become-more-resilient
Mind (no date) Self-care and managing stress and building resilience | mind.
Available at: https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/stress/managing-stress-and-building-resilience/
NeuroQuest AI (2023a) Skill 3: Resilience, flexibility, and agility , Medium.
Available at: https://neuroquest.medium.com/skill-3-resilience-flexibility-and-agility-8caa0651484f
Schneider, G. and Ross, M.J. (2026) Resilience won’t save your organization. adaptability will, Harvard Business Review.
Available at: https://hbr.org/sponsored/2026/02/resilience-wont-save-your-organization-adaptability-will
Videos
Chen, J.M. (2026) What losing everything taught me about resilience, TED.
Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/jane_marie_chen_what_losing_everything_taught_me_about_resilience
Eells, G. (no date) Cultivating resilience, YouTube.
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLzVJVM1BUc&t=129s
Epel , E. (no date) Resilience at Work – Workplace Wellness Summit 2019, YouTube.
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvUtHb-DuUY
Webinar recordings
Centre for Creative Leadership (no date a) How leaders can build organizational resilience to thrive in uncertain times (webinar), CCL.
Available at: https://www.ccl.org/webinars/how-leaders-can-build-organizational-resilience/
Centre for Creative Leadership (no date b) How to boost employee resilience by updating your organization’s meeting culture (webinar), CCL.
Available at: https://www.ccl.org/webinars/boost-employee-resilience-updating-meeting-culture/
Podcasts
Biesinger, D. (no date) The Resilience Breakthrough Podcast, Spotify.
Available at: https://open.spotify.com/show/5A2beQuRYlIoIIWQqGK0ok
Davidson, L. (no date) Building Resilience, Spotify.
Available at: https://open.spotify.com/show/22bteFXDfM2Puzp3zSTUY
Maxwell Leadership Podcast (2024) Strength and Resilience in Leadership, Spotify.
Available at: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7DO1Vti0JShy25mYo4ZQEO?si=ud3t5L1KQZaAwyYby6YTwQ
Maxwell Leadership Podcast (2025) Rules of Resilience with Valorie Burton, Spotify.
Available at: https://open.spotify.com/episode/21wlNONTqnVLg4GxfpUNVk?si=IdNdhgz-RyuVZU7bgtsXUA
Pelletier, M.-H.P. (2023) Making a Resilience Plan, Spotify.
Available at: https://open.spotify.com/episode/18FWzGc9wCRxIoyzPYa1Bd?si=hyl_3bkpQKyGDByzh8cqRg
The Leadership Habit (2021) Self-care for Leadership Resilience, Spotify.
Available at: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Wo1QIw84BBE165mzxR416?si=gWsVJebtTja9qCCLhG8adw
View full report here