The effects of individual and team resilience on psychological health and team performance: a multi-level approach

The challenges that individuals and teams face in complex and unstable environments can negatively affect individuals’ psychological health and team performance. In such contexts, resilience becomes an essential resource for both teams and individuals. It is therefore important to develop a comprehensive approach of resilience at work. The aim of this study is to examine the concurrent and differential effects of individual and team resilience, at both the within-group and between-group levels, on team performance and psychological health (i.e., operationalised as stress and subjective well-being). A cross-sectional survey of 530 employees nested within 68 teams was conducted. Multilevel Structural Equation Modelling analyses indicated that both individual resilience and team resilience at the within-group level were related to psychological health and team performance. Individual resilience was more strongly related to psychological health than to team performance, while the opposite was the case for team resilience. At the between-group level, individual resilience was related to psychological health, while team resilience was related to team performance. These findings suggest that resilience comprises of several components that are equally important but in different ways. Having resilient individuals in a team matters more for psychological health and ensuring that teams sustain a resilient group dynamic is more important for team performance.