AI brings a quieter companion into the workplace: anxiety. The APA's 2026 Work in America survey found 48% of US workers worry AI could make some or all of their duties obsolete.
Reassurance alone rarely helps. Much of the worry is about relevance, as well as skill. People ask whether there will still be a meaningful role for them.
Resilience can be built
Resilience is the capability to adapt, recover from setbacks and keep functioning under uncertainty. It goes beyond toughness or quietly absorbing more pressure.
Southwick and Charney's research shows resilience is shaped heavily by support and environment. That puts it within a leader's reach.
Three things that build it
Honesty. Vague reassurance breeds more worry. People cope better with a hard truth clearly stated. Say what is changing, what is not and what you do not yet know.
Agency. Anxiety grows when change feels done to people. A 2026 study of 962 US desk workers linked low agency over AI use to more low-quality AI work.
Give people a real say in how AI is used in their own work. Let them choose experiments and set some of the rules.
Connection. Resilience is social before it is individual. Teams with strong relationships absorb shocks that would floor isolated people.
Build this capability in your organisation
Growth Performance designs bespoke programmes that turn insight into measurable behaviour change.
Managers need resilience too
Managers carry their own worry while leading others through change. Gallup's 2026 report found manager engagement fell from 31% to 22% in three years.
Gallup also found managers are central to how employees experience AI. Supporting managers is therefore a direct way to support everyone else.
How resilience links to the three conditions
People who feel safe will tell you what worries them, and worries you hear can be worked through. That is how Adoption grows.
Teams that already carry heavy change load have less left for AI. Counting and pacing change is part of Acceleration. The Change Load Counter helps you count it.
What this means for leaders
Treat resilience as a strategic capability. Name the anxiety. Involve people in the change. Protect the relationships that help teams recover.
Frightened people stop experimenting. Resilient teams keep learning, and they adapt faster.
Try this
Give your team fifteen minutes to name what worries them about AI. Do not rush to fix it.
Then count the changes your team absorbed in the last year. If the number surprises you, slow down before adding another.