# Strategic Resilience: Leading Beyond the Superman Trap

**Podcast:** LEITWOLF Podcast - Leadership, Führung & Management
**Published:** 2026-08-13

## Transcript

The best leaders are not those who can withstand any pressure.
They are the ones who can just recover the fastest.
Because resilience is not built during the crisis.
It's built before and after.
Oh, and welcome to today's Lightwolf Leadership Podcast.
Your podcast for leading with impact.
Many leaders believe that resilience means enduring.
Enduring almost everything.
Never complaining.
Always being available.
Always strong.
Always having the answer.
In short, they believe they have to be Superman.
Or Superwoman.
And I believe this is exactly the Superman trap.
Because the best leaders are not those who can withstand any pressure.
When I review my last almost 15 years as a trainer, coach and consultant and the 20 years in the corporate world that I had been in leadership roles prior to that, I observe a couple of phenomena that contribute to the superman or superwoman resilience trap.
Contribution number one.
Leaders believe they always have to be strong.
Many leaders would never dare to show any uncertainty.
They deal with worries on their own, inside themselves.
They think they always need to be the bedrock and the lighthouse to anyone around them.
And while I don't deny that this is one of the roles that leaders play, I do challenge whether that needs to be a permanent state.
Because if you are the one who needs to know the answer, if you are the one and only who gives orientation to others, even in the most stressful of situations, then the result can be stress building up, decisions becoming increasingly lonely.
Decisions deteriorating in quality because they are fed only by one mind rather than by collective intelligence.
And the teams around these leaders learn something that is not really helpful at all.
They learn that vulnerability is not welcome in this environment.
And that is a problem.
Especially since occasionally showing vulnerability and Creating an environment of psychological safety where everyone can be themselves at any time correlates the most highly, for example in Google, with high-performing teams.
So that's problem one.
Problem two, leaders carry too much themselves.
That's a common phenomenon I have observed across thousands of leaders in all those years.
Out of a sense of responsibility, they take on the conflicts.
that they are not even involved in.
But they take the monkeys and help resolve the conflicts that in fact others should resolve on their own.
They take tasks and decisions and responsibilities that others just don't want to solve themselves at all.
All this taking of responsibilities or this carrying so much yourself might work in the short term and it might give solutions one after the other in the short term.
In the long run, however, it risks that you as the leader become the bottleneck.
And you eventually first exhaust yourself and then you exhaust everyone around you.
Problem number three.
Recovery is mistaken for weakness.
Your calendar is full.
The to-do list keeps growing.
Recovery only happens if there is any time left.
And that moment.
That there is time left simply never happens.
But leaders who constantly run on empty tanks, they run on empty energy reserves, they lose exactly what modern leadership requires the most.
The ability to create clarity, composure, and the ability to make good decisions.
So that's why...
Trying to be Superwoman or Superman simply doesn't work.
So what can you do instead?
Let me share a few ideas and experiences that might be more effective.
First, replace perfection with occasional vulnerability.
You do not have to have an answer to every question.
That's not your role.
You are the leader of the pack.
You need to ensure that Ideas emerge.
But rather than wanting to give all the answers, you should promote an environment, starting with your own mindset, of becoming buyers of ideas.
You first, if you are the team leader or the country leader or the CEO, the most senior person should promote the environment of being a buyer of ideas, rather than knowing all the best answers yourself.
Sometimes when people come to you and try to backdelegate to you, if you are the team leader, simply say, I don't know the best answer.
Why don't we work together to find the best solution?
Why don't you take the lead and have a chat with a few people of your choice and come back in two days and suggest what you believe is best?
People do not expect you.
People don't expect their leaders to be superheroes.
They do expect honesty and direction.
And they do expect that they are listened to and that their arguments are heard and appreciated and assessed.
But they are not surprised if you decide the exact opposite of what they recommended, as long as you give them a reason to understand why you decide the way you do.
So, suggestion number one, replace perfection.
mit occasional vulnerability, admitting that you don't have all the answers every single time.
Idea number two for you to consider.
Share responsibility instead of collecting it.
When someone comes to you with a problem, resist the urge to provide an answer, particularly to provide an answer immediately.
Instead, return the question and ask, what do you suggest?
And then listen.
Resilient leaders build resilient teams.
They develop people instead of making themselves indispensable.
If people come to you asking you for a solution, although you are the leader, and if you give the answer, then the answer depends on you.
And they learn that you give answers.
You shouldn't.
Just return the question and just...
So what would you suggest?
And then appreciate the answer.
And in at least 9 out of 10 times, maybe in 10 out of 10 times, you'll be surprised about the quality of ideas that come your way if you just ask and listen.
This way, you promote an environment where you grow your people, where you make yourself dispensable rather than indispensable.
And that's one of the ingredients of good leadership.
So share responsibility instead of collecting it.
Tip number three.
Schedule recovery as deliberately as you pencil in performance, as you plan performance.
Just last Friday, I'm working with quite a number of CEOs.
Never more than seven I support individually over a longer period of time.
So right now I have seven.
Two great women and five male CEOs who I'm working with.
Just last Friday, I had a two-hour session with one of them.
And we talked about the topic of sleep.
And he started sharing, looking at his smartphone, looking at his Aura app.
I also use Aura to share with me.
Well, in the last three days, I had four hours, three and a half hours, four and a half hours of sleep.
Aber an der einen Nacht, wenn ich drei und ein halb Stunden habe, habe ich eine Stunde lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang lang Sleep quality that's so low that you fall asleep on the weekend.
Is that the life you want?
Right?
And he just considered briefly and then responded, not really.
So he put on his to-do list to reflect about sleep quality and to assess his sleeping routines and to consider changing them to determine how much sleep he needs to be fit.
when the right sleeping windows are for him to be fit, and then plan sleep accordingly and do sleep accordingly.
So schedule recovery as deliberately as you schedule performance.
Treat exercise, sleep, family time or quiet downtime, thinking time on your own with the same importance as your most critical business meetings.
Because resilience is not built during the crisis.
It's built before and after.
It's built in the habits that come before or after crisis.
So in a nutshell, three tips for you to build resilience.
1.
Replace perfection with occasional vulnerability.
2.
Share responsibility instead of collecting it on your own.
3.
Schedule recovery.
as deliberately as you schedule performance.
Just a few weeks ago, I had a completely accidental opportunity to meet a successful young entrepreneur.
We met, we were about 70 people, 60 young tech founders in one of the most successful, maybe the most successful tech startup ecosystem, at least in Europe.
Going Global, the network is called Evoa.
It's 120 founders of fascinating ventures and these are tech-savvy, smart, humble, young people I love spending time with.
So I met Adrian Reze.
Adrian is a successful young entrepreneur and founder of Envio Tech.
If you're interested, look into the show notes and have a look.
In listening to him, I detected that resilience has always been one of his superpowers, which is why I spontaneously interviewed him.
So, welcome and listen in.
Ja, dear Lightwolf listener, in this topic of resilience, I couldn't imagine a better guest speaker and supporter on this show than Adrian Reze.
Er ist ein junger Mann, der eine fantastische Firma.
Und es ist, dass hier, auf der anderen Seite der Welt, wir uns miteinander treffen und uns in eine great Gespräche.
So Adrian, willkommen auf der Show.
Hi, thanks for having me.
So, wenn du über die Situation, Adrian, wo du musst, Resilienz, wie du mit Problemen, mit Setbacks, Ja, für mich persönlich, setbacks einfach belong to the journey.
Das ist die erste Part.
Und die zweite ist, ich einfach nicht geben.
Ich denke, das ist eine meiner key personalen Traits, dass ich nicht geben, dass ich nicht gewinnen, dass ich nicht gewinnen, dass ich immer finden, und dass ich immer find a way.
Historisch, einfach nur meine Attraction, so zu sagen, hat das eine Faktor, dass ich immer find a way, no matter how hard es ist.
Even wenn ich ein Selbst-Doubts habe, ich immer sagen, hey, this is a problem and I'm going to find a solution.
You just talked about the moments that occasionally you also have self-doubts.
How do you deal with these moments, Adrian?
Yeah, great question.
So I think it always goes back to the fact that I hate having these self-doubts and I always try to not get into a downward spiral, that I always try to find a solution.
And I think I always remind myself that, historically speaking again, I always find a solution, no matter how tough the issue is.
And if I have the tendency to think I won't find a solution, that I just reach out to people who can help me in this situation and just remind myself that, hey, I always find a solution.
This might sound a bit, yeah, I don't know, a narcissist.
I don't have no idea, but it all revolves about this.
Yeah, it is not narcissism, I can tell you already.
But in these moments, it sounds like you have an inbuilt reflex to say, shit.
There is a problem, but no, I'm not giving up.
There is a solution and I am going to find it.
Have you always had this reflex or did you develop this in yourself, Adrian?
Great question.
I think...
Es hat immer ein Teil meistert.
Und ich denke, das Hauptsache, das kann das, was ich immer noch nicht, hatte ich die Lösung, ich habe immer versucht, es zu finden.
Und ich habe immer gesagt, dass ich es.
Und ich denke, das ist, als ich sehr, sehr jung war, dass meine Freunde und ich wollte Minecraft zusammen spielen.
Und wir hatten den Problem, dass wir zu kaufen, expensive computers zu kaufen.
Let's just say they were 2,000 euros.
And then I didn't have any skill of building them myself, but I knew if we were to build them ourselves, we could play Minecraft together.
So I just learned the skill to build computers at the age of, let's say, like six, seven years old.
And yeah, then build computers for myself, my friends.
So we could just play Minecraft together, even though I never knew I could build computers.
And yeah, just as an anecdote.
So playing Minecraft was very motivating at that age, I guess.
Great.
Would you mind sharing the company you're building, Ariane?
Of course.
Yeah, I'm building in Viotech.
We're a young green tech startup from Frankfurt am Main.
And our goal is to make Streetlights more efficient, more intelligent, which stems from the fact that currently in Germany...
Energie prices are very high and municipalities don't have much money.
So what they sometimes do is turn off the streetlights, which is a huge safety hazard.
So what we've built is a device, you screw it onto the streetlight and through intelligent motion detection, for example, we're able to then dim up the streetlight, save 80% of the energy costs without having the trade-off with safety, security at night.
And yeah, we're now rolling this out in Germany and the EU.
And when you demonstrated that product to me a few moments ago, when basically we met, I was just...
Taken by surprise.
How easy it was.
So would you visualize the product for our audience?
Ja, es ist einfach ein sehr klein Puck.
Ich sage es nicht rocket science.
Natürlich ist es ein Multilayer PCB mit vielen verschiedenen Componenten.
Aber ultimately ist es einfach ein Device, die den Streetlights zu schien, an welches brightness, depending auf welchen externalen conditions, be es motion detection mit der Radar Module oder andere Streetlights mit unserer Kommunikation Device.
Aber ja, ultimately, es dauert 15 Minuten zu screw auf den Streetlights und von Day 1, wir save 80% der Energie.
Das ist amazing.
So das war vielleicht zwei Minuten.
mit Adrian Reise.
Und ist es spannend, ist es inspirierend, zu fühlen, und auch zu hören, zu hören, zu sein Perspektive auf Resilienz.
Er hat dieses reflexive instinct, zu always go for a solution, rather than admiring a problem for way too long.
Ich liebe das Attitude.
Now, meine Frage zu Ihnen.
Quick poll.
Was do Sie find more difficult als a leader?
A.
Asking for help.
B.
Letting go and giving responsibility to others.
Please pick up your phone, go into the show notes now and invest these 5 seconds just to tick your box.
So what do you find more difficult as a leader?
Asking for help or letting go and giving responsibility to others?
I'd love to hear your perspective.
Thank you in advance for investing the time.
In a nutshell, my key takeaway on this topic of resilience.
The most successful leaders I've met.
Und sie wussten, dass sustainably high-performance nur existiert when you take care of your own energy as well, when you build your resilience for the time when you need it.
And perhaps that is the most important insight.
Resilience does not mean enduring any time forever.
Resilience means recovering, recovering frequently and recovering faster than others.
Or even shorter, when leadership believes it has to be Superman, It's on the wrong path.
Great leadership has the courage to stay human and to build resilience for the time when you need it.
I hope you enjoyed this podcast.
I hope you just took a little bit away from it.
It helps you become the version of yourself that you'd like to be.
Thanks for being on the show and looking forward to having you here again next week.
Have a great week and speak soon.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.