Redefining Resilience in Association Leadership

Leadership Wellbeing Series, Episode 7 — with Vy Le, MBA, CAE

Resilient leadership begins when ___.

There's a version of "resilient" that gets handed to leaders like a compliment, and it usually means something closer to never stops, never complains, never needs anything. You know the person. Maybe you've been that person — the one still answering emails at midnight before a big event, running on fumes and calling it dedication.

That's the myth our latest guest, Vy Le, MBA, CAE — Director of Professional Development and Member Engagement for the Australasian College of Dermatologists and host of the podcast Humans of Authenticity — spent this episode quietly dismantling.

Vy draws a distinction that's stuck with me since we recorded: resilience isn't endurance. Endurance is gritting through. Resilience is something calmer and more sustainable — she compares it to drinking water every day. You don't need a liter at once. You need consistency, and you need to actually notice when the glass is empty.

She told a story about a team member from an earlier job in conference and events management who used to show up visibly having not slept, still pushing through, still "on" — and she found herself wondering how much longer someone could keep that up. That's the moment she started naming the difference between resilience and just enduring.

So what does building real resilience actually look like day to day? Vy's answer isn't a five-step framework — it's smaller and more human than that. A few ideas she shared:

• Three breaths before you walk into anything. A meeting, a hard conversation, a day that already feels like too much. Not as a cure-all, just as a pause long enough to decide how you want to show up.
• "Free writing" as a release valve. When her thoughts turn into what she calls a messy ball of yarn, she doesn't try to sort it in her head — she gets it onto paper first, unsorted, and lets the important threads reveal themselves after.
• Trust built in small, unglamorous moments. Vy told a story about the CEO she worked for at her very first job out of college, who'd walk the office asking how her dog was doing — a habit that felt foreign to her at first, and that she eventually realized was exactly how real trust gets built between people who work together.

As Vy summed it up: "I do know that there are better ways to manage that... and that goes back to resilience."

I don't think that distinction is small. Most of us can point to a leader who made a hard season feel survivable just by how steady they stayed in it — and most of us have also been the person quietly running on empty while insisting we're fine. This episode is a good, honest check on which one you're being right now.

There's more in the full conversation — how Vy builds her own "board of directors" out of family, a coach, and her professional network, and a closing exchange about how much of resilience really comes down to a choice we get to make, day after day.

Episode 7 comes to you courtesy of our sponsor, Association Briefings, who also produce this series — if you've ever thought about starting a podcast for your own association, they're a great place to start that conversation.

So, back to that question: Resilient leadership begins when ___. Vy has her own answer, and she says it better than I can paraphrase — it's worth hearing in her own voice near the end of the episode. Give it a listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts, and if it resonates, we'd love it if you'd subscribe, leave a rating or review, or pass it along to a colleague who could use the reminder that calm is a leadership skill, not a luxury. And if any of this feels closer to home than "just a busy season," please don't carry it alone. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, call or text 988.

We'll leave you with the same challenge we leave every guest: take thirty seconds, no overthinking. Resilient leadership begins when ___?