Resilience is rapidly becoming a leadership issue in the UK

Resilience has traditionally been a specialist subset of risk and compliance, or perhaps sustainability. That is no longer viable.

Our collective risk environment is defined by interconnected short, medium and long term threats. The list is almost endless but the most prominent include cyber attacks, geopolitical instability, supply chain disruption, energy insecurity, declining trust in institutions and climate change. Individually, they might be manageable; any confluence has the potential to present existential risks.

Of course the decision-making has to be based on the risk management practices of identifying threats, reducing exposure and recovering from any disruption. But when the risk of that disruption starts to become the norm not the exception, they are no longer sufficient on their own. This is the moment resilience has to be a central function of an organization’s senior leadership.

Resilience is increasingly measured by how quickly an organisation can respond, adapt and maintain stakeholder confidence. That means focusing on adaptability, decision-making and strategic flexibility.

It also means focusing on what concerns stakeholders. In our latest research, Adaptation and Resilience in the United Kingdom, we found a gap between what business leaders and the public perceive as the main threats. While that isn’t surprising, given the speed of change, it is something leaders need to address.

The most stark differences are public concerns centring around affordability, trust, misinformation and social stability, with businesses worrying more about cyber security, AI governance and regulatory compliance.

This is where communications becomes critical, because there are links between the two positions that businesses can use to explain their activities in ways the broader audience can understand and appreciate.

Operational capabilities are essential to resilience and recovery but are typically too detailed to convince external audiences. Instead, strong governance, risk frameworks and crisis plans need to be couched in terms of transparency, building credibility and trust, demonstrating activity stakeholders can actually see and feel.

Climate adaptation provides a good example. Discussions around reducing emissions are essential but are not enough on their own. Organizations also need to address questions around what this actually looks like for their operations, both in terms of emissions reduction and adaptation.

Answering these questions requires strategic foresight, stakeholder engagement and clear communication, otherwise known as leadership.

Now is the time to act. The UK Government has raised its expectations of business’ resilience and adaptation planning, making organizational readiness a regulatory requirement not a voluntary undertaking. That is happening faster than many companies are strengthened their own preparedness. And it is combined with increasing public expectations around governance, transparency and contingency planning, making resilience a core business imperative.

The organizations best positioned for the future will be those that view resilience as the capacity to anticipate change, adapt quickly and maintain trust through uncertainty. Adaptation and Resilience in the United Kingdom was produced by Charlie Pryor, Lukasz Bochenek and Peter de Graaf.