Emotional Resilience in Entrepreneurship and Crisis Management

Running Head: EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND CRISIS
MANAGEMENT
How do entrepreneurs of big companies develop emotional resilience to stand out during a
crisis?
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EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
Introduction to Entrepreneurship and global business
Change is the basic law of nature and is basically the only constant in life. Unlike human
life business also has its own life cycle. Every business has its own ups and downs, but the basic
motto of any successful business is to change the pain into gain. Study revealed that the
entrepreneurs who have started from zero base are the most successful ones in the long run of
competitive business (Booth). Business environments are constantly changing, intensifying and
are unrelenting in nature. Entrepreneurs are well aware of market scenario and still deal with
risks. The fact is that successful entrepreneurs have high degree of emotional resilience in them.
Emotional resilience does not mean that they are soft hearted, kind and weak hearted. Resilience
refers to the ability to cope up to difficult situations and adopt to crisis (Welsh). Many instances
are found in business history where companies have faced rough times and have overcome
difficult situations confidently. They had their faith in themselves and their co-workers and were
emotionally stable and calm. Decision making at that point of time play very crucial role in the
future of the business. Sometimes a step backward leads to two steps forward. So emotional
resilience in corporate leaders is one of the main traits that distinguishes them from the rest of
the masses.
Emotional resilience
Emotional resilience is use of emotions in controlling resilience. It is like bouncing back
from the trauma. It is an inherent trait in humans it cannot be developed by learning some set up
techniques or by merely imitating big leaders. More practical outlook helps in strengthening the
emotional resilience in managers (Bristow and Healy). Stress management and development of
resilience is enhanced by understanding the situation, assessing the flexibility of options
available and working with optimism. Study shows that most entrepreneurs and would be

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EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
entrepreneurs know that fear of failure holds them back for some point of time but overcoming
those fears lead to the ultimate success. The resilient managers make order out of chaos. They
well understand the fact that the only predictable thing in this ever-changing business world is
unpredictability. So, entrepreneurs from their very first day develop the quality of resilience. The
entrepreneurs need to set some standards for themselves that will help them in better stress
management at the time of crisis. First and foremost, they need to see themselves as fighters
because nothing could be achieved sitting idle and without trying. From the very first day the
entrepreneurs need to understand the situations in prevailing business market should develop the
mentality of a fighter. Going with one’s gifts is something the person is the strongest one with.
Meaning the entrepreneur should know the strongest side of his and should use that trait in the
most difficult situations. Patience is good but anger leads to acting and achieving the target
effectively. So, getting angry and acting is another quality that need to be set up in entrepreneurs.
Most importantly they need to trust one’s own guts and need to act rightly at the right place and
at the right time. Being intuitive and having empathy makes the resilience factor stronger
(Sommer, Amy, Howell, and Hadley). Rebooting oneself from time to time increase adaptability.
Many instances are there where an entrepreneur has started the business but at certain point
realizes that his passion is not here, he can easily reboot himself to the domain he is most expert
in. The entrepreneur should learn to be gracious about the losses, even the most earth shattered
ones. The entrepreneurs should learn in drawing strength from their losses and thus should be
emotionally resilient. Higher emotional resilience helps in increased productivity, improved
morale, improved team relationship, reduced employee absenteeism and retention of the best
resources for the organization (Crandall, Rick, Parnell, and Spillan). Big companies are not built
in a day, it took many years and people’s sweat to stand up in tis own and have some rigid