DECODING AQ - Adaptability Confidence With Ross Thornley

Decoding AQ with Ross Thornley Feat. Russell Harvey - The Resilience Coach

Russell Harvey · March 27, 2025

Executive Coach · Leadershipin

Interview with Russell Harvey

Decoding AQ with Ross Thornley Feat. Russell Harvey - The Resilience Coach

Podcast: DECODING AQ - Adaptability Confidence With Ross Thornley

March 27, 2025 · 48 min

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Decoding AQ with Ross Thornley Feat. Russell Harvey - The Resilience Coach

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DECODING AQ - Adaptability Confidence With Ross Thornley

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Key topicsLeading Well When the World Won’t Slow DownChange is no longer something leaders navigate occasionally - it is the environment they lead in every day. Russell explores the difference between leaders who are simply surviving relentless change and those who can genuinely say: “There’s a lot going on, and I’m good.” Drawing on nearly two decades specialising in resilience, Russell offers a practical perspective on what resilient leadership actually looks, sounds and feels like when the pressure is real and the uncertainty isn't going away.Before You Add AI to Your Team, Fix the Human OneOrganisations are racing to adopt AI, but Russell believes leaders need to ask a more fundamental question first: what makes our team work brilliantly together? Only then can they understand where AI can genuinely improve performance. With deep expertise in leadership, resilience and navigating persistent change, Russell offers a refreshingly human perspective on AI: the biggest challenge may not be the technology, but how well we lead the people using it.Off the Record — What Leaders Admit in Coaching and Never Say in the BoardroomRussell Harvey has coached leaders to board level for over 6,000 hours, and the same admissions come up in private: they are guessing, they are tired, and they can say neither out loud. Most organisations treat that silence as strength and reward the executive who never wavers, which is how confident-looking teams commit to decisions nobody in the room believes in. Drawing on 18 years with organisations from the NHS to Novartis and Kerry Group, he describes what changes when a leader finally gets one place to think honestly: how they pressure-test a decision before announcing it, and how they pass that same permission down to their own team. Listeners leave able to hear what their leadership group is not saying, and knowing what to do once they hear it.View all topics →

About Russell Harvey

The Resilience Coach | Resilient Leadership Expert

100,000+ People positively affected6,000+ Executive coaching hours£12M+ ROI delivered by RWE npower leadership programme20+ years Learning, leadership and organisational development

Russell Harvey is The Resilience Coach - a resilient leadership expert, executive coach, facilitator and keynote speaker who helps leaders and organisations perform at their best when the world refuses to stand still.

With more than 20 years in Learning, Leadership and Organisational Development, 6,000+ hours of executive coaching and over 70 published podcast appearances, Russell is an experienced and engaging voice on resilience, leadership and navigating persistent change. He has worked with leaders across organisations including Novartis, the NHS, AB World Foods, Kerry Group and The Co-operative Group.

Russell’s work goes beyond helping people simply cope with pressure. He believes true resilience isn’t about “bouncing back”, being tougher or pretending everything is fine - it’s about springing forward with learning and becoming better equipped to lead because of the challenges you’ve faced.

His approach connects the human side of leadership directly to what matters to organisations: engaged people, stronger cultures, better decisions and improved performance. His work has delivered measurable results, including a leadership programme that returned £12 million to the business and a Resilient Leader Programme that achieved more than 1,100% ROI.

In August 2025, Russell achieved his long-held purpose of positively affecting 100,000 people.

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About this episode

What does Russell do? Well the opening line on his website says it all "he Supports Leaders Who are Wading Through Treacle to Rediscover their Mojo and make great decisions"

With over 2 decades years of experience in learning, leadership, and organizational development, Russell has dedicated the past 18 years to resilience and navigating the complexities of a VUCA world.

He’s an engaging leadership coach, speaker, and facilitator with a mission to positively impact 100,000 lives by the end of this year. Passionate, pragmatic, and playful, Russell is here to share his insights on resilience, leadership, and helping people rediscover their mojo.

Ross and Russell talk about leadership at The Co-operative Group, restructure, change, defining resilience, bouncing back without learning, surviving, thriving, overwhelm, never add to the 'to do list', reducing stress, purpose & energy, positive effects, playing to strengths, reducing responsibilities, delegating, removing blockage to people performing and feeling lighter. The pair also discuss common understanding, fostering energy, wellbeing, lack of confidence, caring for people, optimism, grounding guiding hope, tough times forcing resilience, adaptability, agility, simplifying new things, permanent openness, burnout, adopting AI, what is working well, emotional intelligence, finding purpose, reflect back on your life and remember being proud, finding ways to be proud, natural energisers, enjoying work, fear, your network, intentional choice and asking for help.

Timecodes:

00:16 Intro to Russell00:54 Russell's background01:48 Becoming ‘The Resilience Coach’04:40 Clients journeys with Russell13:06 Giving teams and organisations resilience16:41 Russell's current activities and impacting 100,000 lives19:54 Darker times in the past and accepting reality24:44 Addiction recovery - Genius Recovery25:58 Proactive resilience and building resilience29:10 Suffering a role and identity loss32:23 VUCA and BANI - Brittle, Anxious, Non-Linear and Incomprehensible33:54 Rolemodeling and unlearning35:53 EQ and AQ - Emotional Quotient and Adversity Quotient38:16 Building resilience in the next 10 days42:57 The last time Russell did something for the first timeConnect with Russell:

WebsiteLinkedInEmail: - russell@TheResilienceCoach.co.uk

Connect with Ross:

WebsiteLinkedInMoonshot Innovation Pivot Point Documentary

Guest: Russell Harvey