
Dr Belinda Board
Belinda is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, a chartered clinical psychologist with postgraduate degrees in Organisational and Forensic Psychology and a Ph.D. in leadership behaviours and workplace well-being. As a leading psychologist and executive coach to the business world, Belinda blends her deep psychological expertise with 20 years’ experience of working with business leaders around the globe, to enable deep and sustainable growth of psychological capabilities that are critical for individuals and organisations to thrive and succeed.
Belinda has built up extensive experience in the design and delivery of global end-to-end talent management solutions. She is a global specialist in organisational transformation, executive coaching, strategic thinking, cultural diversity, psychometric tool design and leadership and team development. Belinda’s research into leadership behaviours and workplace well-being has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals. She is currently engaged with the University of Surrey, Bond University and University of Hertfordshire on joint research projects that are investigating workplace well-being, counterproductive workplace behaviours and leadership potential respectively. Her published papers on functional and dysfunctional leadership behaviours and workplace well-being can be found in the Journal of Affective Disorders, the Journal of Psychology, Crime and Law and the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.
Thriving (not just surviving) in VUCA environments
Take a moment to stop and think about the sheer volume of responsibilities, interactions, and communications you deal with on a daily basis and compare it to the volume you dealt with even five years ago. Technological innovations have enabled us to manage an ever-increasing volume of information and assume a level of responsibility that was unimaginable even a decade ago.
However, with new opportunities come new challenges, and thanks to our continued pursuit of success and achievement, we are experiencing an unprecedented rate of change and complexity. Added to that, the extraordinary upheaval caused by the global pandemic has dramatically accelerated the pace at which we need to adjust and adapt.
At PeopleWise, through both our academic research and 20 years’ experience of working with organisations to be more effective, we have identified 7 pillars that help people thrive, not just survive, in this volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environment. Together, these 7 pillars form what we have named Positive Resilience: the science and practice of developing mastery over our ability to not just cope with disruption and challenges but help us thrive and reach our full potential for both happiness and success. We believe that rather than just surviving experiences, people can learn to adapt, grow, and develop while handling stress, challenge and adversity, resulting in a thriving and fulfilling life.
The 7 Pillars of Positive Resilience allow us to go beyond merely coping and recovery, by providing a platform for personal growth and development to reach our full potential. The 7 Pillars of Positive Resilience are by no means inherent qualities that we either have or do not have. Rather, they involve thinking patterns, feelings, behaviours, actions, and strategies that can be learned and developed by anyone.
The 7 Pillars of Positive Resilience offer each of us the opportunity to reach our full potential for both happiness and success. They also offer organisations the opportunity to realise long term competitive advantage, by helping them to be more flexible, more adaptive, and more open to growth and change. Backed by both research and wide business experience, each of the 7 pillars can be developed in anyone through focus and practice: supporting individuals to flourish despite uncertainty.
We will explore the research behind the 7 pillars to answer the ‘’Why and ‘What’ and then focus on ‘how’ they can be developed.
We will draw on case studies and run a short participatory exercise on how one of the pillars of Positive Resilience can be developed.
We will offer attendees one free personal access to our Positive Resilience Profiler, our globally validated tool for measuring Positive Resilience. They will receive a comprehensive report, including top tips for developing the 7 Pillars of Positive Resilience.
The 7 Pillars of Positive Resilience provide a road map to thriving in this VUCA environment. We will explore the research behind them to answer the ‘’Why and ‘What’ and then focus on ‘how’ they can be developed.