[IMAGE: Prof. Dr. Frank Unger and Reiner Lomb — photo by Peter Mannert]

Hello,

I’ve just returned from a speaking tour in Germany, and one feeling was impossible to ignore: a heightened anxiety about the growing uncertainty in the world. With the war in Ukraine unresolved, a new conflict erupting in Iran, a deepening climate crisis, rising far-right movements, and AI reshaping the job market, it’s not hard to understand why.

On both sides of the Atlantic, people are asking the same question: How do I lead — and live — in the face of this kind of relentless disruption?

That’s why Prof. Dr. Frank Unger and I have started to offer a new workshop for business leaders, entrepreneurs, and anyone who wants to lead positive change, called “Leading Effectively in Times of Disruptive Change.” Recently, we had the honor of running this workshop at the Chamber of Commerce in Fulda, Germany, with local entrepreneurs and business leaders who were wrestling with exactly these pressures. At the heart of our conversation were seven key leadership behaviors and the emotions that drive them.

In this post, I want to focus on one of those seven behaviors: resilience. Being resilient is the ability to recover from setbacks, adapt to change, and keep going in the face of adversity.

How to Build Resilience in Times of Disruption

Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson’s research offers a striking insight: negativity doesn’t just feel bad — it actively undermines our ability to bounce back. Positive emotions, on the other hand, even small and quiet ones, help restore our resilience both mentally and physically.

Fredrickson found that resilient people use positivity as a kind of reset button. In stressful situations, their heart rate and blood pressure spike just as much as anyone else’s — but they recover faster, because they don’t let themselves spiral into negativity. The hard feelings come; they just don’t stay as long.

The encouraging news is that resilience is not a fixed trait — it can be built. Fredrickson’s research points to what she calls the positivity-to-negativity ratio: experiencing three or more positive emotions for every negative one is enough to tip the balance toward resilience. You don’t need to banish difficult feelings. You simply need to consciously cultivate more positive ones alongside them.

A Story That Brings This to Life

Sometimes, the most profound acts of leadership happen not in boardrooms or battle plans — but in making the choice to create a moment of beauty in the middle of despair.

History offers us few more striking examples than what happened on August 9, 1942, in the besieged city of Leningrad. Hitler’s army had surrounded the city for nearly a year. Food had all but run out. Death had become a daily fact of life. And yet that evening, an orchestra of the city’s last surviving musicians — some of whom had been carried to the concert hall after being nursed back from the brink of starvation — took the stage to perform Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony. The audience had traded their meager daily bread rations for a ticket. The music was broadcast over loudspeakers across the city, its sound carrying all the way to the German soldiers at the front.

When the final note faded, there was a moment of absolute silence. Then the audience rose as one — thundering applause filling the hall. The musicians turned and embraced each other, many in tears. Witnesses said the music didn’t just move them. It brought them back to life.

As author M.T. Anderson recounts in Symphony for the City of the Dead, the performance awakened something profound in people: awe, gratitude, joy, hope — and above all, a fierce love for their city and for one another. The siege would grind on for another eighteen months. But that night has been remembered ever since as its turning point. In the darkest of circumstances, Leningrad’s leaders made a conscious choice — not to pretend the suffering wasn’t real, but to reach past it and kindle something worth surviving for.

What Does This Mean for Us Today?

We are not, of course, living under siege. But many of the leaders I speak with describe something that feels like that — a grinding, relentless uncertainty that makes it hard to think clearly, lead confidently, or simply stay hopeful. The pressures are real. The exhaustion is real.

What Leningrad teaches us is that even in the most extreme circumstances or setbacks, it’s possible to foster resiliency by increasing positivity. You don’t need an orchestra. But you do need to be intentional.

What Can You Do?

Like the leaders of Leningrad, each of us can make a conscious choice to nurture positivity — both in ourselves and in the people around us.

Watch this brief video clip (9th in a 10 part series): Positivity Being Resilient (YouTube Short)

Want more insights like this? See previous newsletters or subscribe to the ASPIRE Newsletter for future updates here:
www.reinerlomb.com/news

What helps you bounce back when things get hard — and how do you help the people around you do the same? I’d love to hear from you.

Thank you,
Reiner

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