Capability: The Power Behind Resilience
By Cheryl Mongelard from Word Wand and Nadja Conaghan from Great Minds United
In today’s evolving workplace, resilience is essential. Genuine resilience must be developed before it’s truly needed and requires more than a positive attitude - it calls for real strength.
So, what’s one of the best ways to develop inner resilience? It’s building capability.
It looks like this: choose one core skill that matter most to your role and decide to become highly capable. Strive to move beyond achieving to outperforming.
When you are deeply competent in a core area of your work, confidence naturally follows. And with that confidence comes a steady, grounded resilience.
So, think about the work you do. What’s one area where you could lift your game from competent to being known as the ‘go-to’ person? Maybe it’s turning complex data into clear, visual stories. Maybe it’s presenting with impact. Or perhaps it’s finding ways to leverage AI to cut out repetitive admin tasks. Whatever it is in your field, choose one, and commit the time and energy to mastering it.
Capability as a Proactive Resilience Strategy
Too often, resilience is framed as something we call upon in reaction to crisis. But as the saying goes, a crisis doesn’t build character - it reveals it. We need to stay ahead of the game and that’s where capability building matters. It’s proactive.
When you deliberately develop and master a skill, several things happen:
You get energised. Working toward mastery gives you a forward focus and a sense of purpose.
You feel great about yourself. Each improvement is a step toward becoming the professional you want to be.
You earn respect. Colleagues and management notice when you consistently lift your game.
You become the “go-to” person. Being recognised for a specific skill signals your value to the team.
You create options. Options reduce helplessness, one of the biggest drains on resilience.
You anchor yourself in capability. When things get tough, you have a skill to lean on and a proven track record to draw confidence from.
Capability and the Freedom to be Vulnerable
Here’s the surprising part: Being highly capable in one area actually makes it easier to admit where you’re not the expert. When you know your value, you can be open about your limitations without feeling diminished.
In practice, this might sound like:
“I can lead the insights analysis, but I’ll need marketing’s expertise to shape the customer message.”
This isn’t weakness; it’s an efficient, realistic understanding that no one has the time - or the need - to be an expert at everything. This honesty builds trust and fosters collaborative resilience.
What will you be known for?
Every professional should ask: What is the skill I want to be known for?
Once you identify it, invest in it deliberately. Then, share it generously - mentor others, document your process, and step up when that expertise is needed. At the same time, be willing to reach out to others for the skills you don’t have. This mutual exchange of capabilities not only builds personal resilience but strengthens team resilience as well.
Practical Steps to build Inner Resilience through Capability
Identify your natural strengths. Reflect on tasks you enjoy and perform well in; feedback from peers can help.
Invest in targeted learning. Take courses, seek stretch assignments, or shadow experts in your chosen area.
Apply and refine. Use your skill regularly; mastery comes from repetition in varied contexts.
Share your expertise. Teaching others reinforces your own competence and deepens your team’s overall capability.
Seek complementary skills. Surround yourself with colleagues whose strengths balance yours, creating a safety net for everyone.
Commit to being Resilient through Capability Building
When you commit to capability building, you’re safeguarding your confidence and resilience. In a corporate environment where change is constant, this is one of the most valuable investments you can make in yourself.
Being known for something, aligned with your strengths, uplifts you. It anchors your professional identity. It gives you the psychological resources to face challenges head-on. And perhaps most importantly, it creates a ripple effect—when you model capability and confidence, you inspire others to do the same.
So, the question becomes: What will you choose to excel in? And once you’ve built that capability, how will you use it to strengthen not only yourself, but the people around you?
Nadja’s Final Thoughts
Capability - i.e., being good at something - is so important for you self-value, self-worth, confidence and ultimately your inner resilience. In other words, you don’t need to only focus on “resilience strategies” to become more resilient. Building capability and becoming great at something can make you more resilient. The building capability strategies, described by Cheryl, teaches us something about resilience itself:
Identify your natural strengths: Using your strengths to problem solve and increase your mental health and confidence
Invest in targeted learning: Invest in yourself and learn something new that benefits you
Apply and refine: Have the confidence to act and overcoming setbacks and challenges; having discipline, tenacity and determination
Share your expertise: Teaching others is the highest form of expertise; it creates connection and is a powerful source of meaning and self-worth
Seek complementary skills: Building a strong support system
Feeling good and confident in your role and be the “go-to-person” and a role-model to others give you confidence in yourself, increases your self-worth, tenacity, determination and the ability to overcome challenges and less vulnerable to setbacks - all things that make you resilient.
Inspired by Cheryl’s words, we at Great Minds United developed a tool for you to support you in building capability to become more resilient.
Click here to download.
Some useful hints on how to use and complete the tool:
Capability: What capability do you want to build and/ or strengthen?
Example: Leadership Capability
Identify your natural strengths. Reflect on tasks you enjoy and perform well in that are aligned to the aspired capability. Feedback from your peers, mentors or leader can help to identify these natural skills that bring. List all these natural skills you bring and use these consciously to build and strengthen your aspired capability.
Example: Natural mentor and coach; problem solving skills; organisational skills; great communicator (verbal and written); great presenter
Invest in targeted learning. Take courses, seek stretch assignments, or shadow experts in your chosen area. List learning activities you are committed to and how you make these happen.
Example: Enrol into and complete Leadership courses; apply for secondment into leadership role; get a mentor and coach to work with you on your leadership capability; shadow a leader that is a role model to you
Apply and refine. Use your skill regularly; mastery comes from repetition in varied contexts. Write down how you will practise the capability related skills (commit to a frequency and/or define what situations you will practise). Track your progress (e.g. in your daily or weekly reflection journal) and ask for feedback (ask your peers, leader or mentor for feedback and work on strategies to refine your skills).
Example: When a colleague makes a mistake, use the opportunity to practise your feedback giving and coaching skills
Share your expertise. Teaching others reinforces your own competence and deepens your team’s overall capability. List and describe how you share your expertise and knowledge with others.
Example: Volunteer to be a mentor/ coach in your organisation’s mentoring programs; be an (in)offical mentor for proteges (i.e. someone who aspires to perform your role and/ or become an expert); run brownbag sessions
Seek complementary skills. Surround yourself with colleagues whose strengths balance yours, creating a safety net for everyone. Write down who compliments your skills and how. How can they help you with an area you struggle or how can they support you to get better. How can you help them in return?
Example: Peter is great with scheduling and creating spreadsheets/ PowerApps for solving problems and automating processes. I will ask him to teach me some basics and also help me creating an automated solution for a re-occurring problem in my team. I know he struggles with writing concise presentations - which is one of my strengths. I will proof-read and offer to coach him and teach him my approach.