Tempered Resilience Study Guide

Leadership leads to vulnerability that requires the security of relationships to endure.

Tempered Resilience: How Leaders Are Formed in the Crucible of Change is about forming resilience so leaders can lead through the resistance that always accompanies change. Tod Bolsinger, an organizational and pastoral leader, writes that experiencing resistance leaves us feeling "exposed, unsure, and often discouraged." Honest and supportive relationships are key to flourishing in these moments of vulnerability. Thus the sessions in this guide are designed to lead to honest conversations for self-discovery as well as offering practices that leaders and their teams can take on together.

Following the structure of review, reflect, relate, and practice, this guide for both individuals and groups will help you to forge the kind of tempered and resilient leadership that the times demand.



Tod Bolsinger (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is a speaker, executive coach, former pastor, and author who serves as associate professor of leadership formation and senior fellow for the De Pree Center for Leadership at Fuller Seminary. He is the author of Canoeing the Mountains, which was named Outreach Magazine Resource of the Year in Pastoral Leadership, as well as the Christianity Today Award of Merit recipient It Takes a Church to Raise a Christian. For seventeen years, he was the senior pastor of San Clemente Presbyterian Church in San Clemente, California. A frequent speaker and consultant, he serves as an executive coach in transformational leadership.

Introduction


1 Hewing Hope and the Mountain of Despair


2 Working: Leaders Are Formed in Leading


3 Heating: Strength Is Forged in Self-Reflection


4 Holding: Vulnerable Leadership Requires Relational Security


5 Hammering: Stress Makes a Leader


6 Hewing: Resilience Takes Practice


7 Tempering: Resilience Comes Through a Rhythm of Leading and Not Leading


8 The Why of Leadership


Notes