Julie Turpin PurposeFULL Leadership Newsletter- Resilience Isn’t Built Alone — It’s a Team Sport

Julie Turpin’s most recent Thought Leadership newsletter is live – Resilience Isn’t Built Alone — It’s a Team Sport.

Are mentorship programs becoming too casual and just another culture checkbox that organisations tick off to stay competitive?

Life will change. It’s not a question of if — it’s a matter of when. In every career and every life, there are seasons that push us beyond our current comfort zones: new beginnings, unexpected setbacks, joyful milestones and painful losses. These moments challenge us to adapt, recover and move forward, a skill we build over time, often in moments we least expect.

Recent studies indicate that as many as 57% of workers experience the negative impacts of work-related stress and burnout, highlighting just how essential resilience is today. But resilience is more than just a personal skill; it’s a collective strength — one that I believe organisations must intentionally nurture if they want their people, and their businesses, to thrive in 2025 and beyond.

Resilience is a shared responsibility

Resilience isn’t something you either have or don’t have — it’s something we all build throughout our lives. It takes work, perspective and presence. Sometimes that presence looks like sitting with discomfort instead of rushing to solve it. Other times, it’s coaching yourself through a moment of self-doubt or disappointment. We don’t always get to choose our circumstances, but we can choose how we show up in them. That mindset doesn’t come naturally, though. It’s a muscle you strengthen with time and practice.

Personal resilience is powerful, but in the workplace, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The teams and leaders around us shape our ability to stay grounded and adapt — how they respond to stress, support one another and handle failure and uncertainty. A resilient mindset might start with the individual, but it grows or erodes within the dynamics of a team.

Organisations have a responsibility to create conditions where resilience can grow. That means offering resources, building supportive communities and paying attention when someone might need help, even if they don’t say it out loud.

Leaders play a pivotal role in this process. When leaders see the whole person, not just the performer, they create space for honest conversations about challenges and growth. They normalize change, validate the discomfort that can come with it and coach their teams through it.

What this looks like in action

Building resilience isn’t about one program or one policy. It’s about creating a full ecosystem of support for your teams.

At Brown & Brown, we’ve made resilience part of how we support teammates through every season of their lives. Here are some of the services and structures that we’ve found to be most impactful:

• Personalized life-change support: Offering one-on-one services that help teammates navigate complex life moments, from elder care and childcare transitions to end-of-life planning and major family shifts.
• Mental health allies: Training a visible network of teammates who are equipped to recognize signs of struggle and connect others to help in a supportive, stigma-free way.
• Community groups and affinity networks: Creating spaces for belonging and support through shared experiences and identities.
• Flexible care resources: Providing reliable backup care options for children, elderly family members and other dependents so teammates can focus on what matters most.
• Human-centered leadership practices: Equipping leaders to see the whole person, check in thoughtfully and create environments where it’s safe to ask for support.

The key isn’t just offering these services — it’s talking about them openly, normalizing their use and creating a culture where asking for help is seen as a strength, not a weakness. Resilience needs to be an everyday conversation, woven into leadership check-ins and how we celebrate growth, not just outcomes.

How we move forward

As leaders, we may feel pressure to always have the answers or to push through without acknowledging the difficulty of the moment. But there’s a difference between powering through and moving through challenges.

When we push against discomfort and try to force our way past or around a situation without learning, we are resisting — even if we successfully make it to the other side. Resilience is about accepting the discomfort, moving through it thoughtfully and coming out stronger.

For me, resilience is rooted in knowing I have people I can count on, having a plan for what I can control and being open to reframing my journey when challenges arise. It’s the quiet, persistent belief that I can move through what’s hard, even when the path isn’t clear or I have to take one small step at a time.

As you continue to build your resilience and that of those around you, I encourage you to reflect on the following:

• What helps you, as an individual, move through hard things?
• What would it look like if resilience were something your company or team built into its culture rather than something your people were simply expected to have?

By coming together and offering support, our individual resilience will grow that much stronger as opposed to going it alone.

Read more about how resilience is a shared responsibility here to read Julie’s latest newsletter.