Resilience starts at the top: what I learned about leading teams through crisis

Lynette Ooi, Founder and Principal Consultant at BetterWiser, shares how personal burnout reshaped her leadership and why true team resilience starts with vulnerability, shared purpose and empowered systems.

In 2020, like many of you, I found myself navigating a global crisis with no playbook. I was in a new leadership role, tasked with building a team from the ground up – all while trying to keep pace with an unrelenting workload and the emotional toll of a pandemic.

The word burnout had never applied to me. Until it did.

What followed was one of the hardest – and most transformative – periods of my career. I took a three-month sabbatical. I started my executive coaching journey. I read Tribal Leadership. I took a course on finding meaning and purpose. And most importantly, I began to reshape how I led.

This experience changed how I thought about resilience – not just my own, but the kind we need to build within our legal teams to thrive in times of volatility.

Here are the three shifts that made the biggest difference.

Lead with Vulnerability, Not Just Strength

As lawyers, we’re trained to be calm, composed, and decisive. But that can sometimes mean hiding the very human experiences we’re all carrying – stress, fatigue, uncertainty.

Before my sabbatical, I made the decision to be fully transparent with my team. I told them the truth: I had burned out. And I shared why I was taking time off – not only to recover, but to model what a sustainable career looks like. I also asked for their help. I invited them to step up, to lead in their own ways, and to support each other and the business.

That vulnerability created something unexpected: trust.

During my time away, several team members grew in ways I hadn’t imagined. They took ownership. Their confidence deepened. And they supported each other in a way that created a more resilient culture – one that didn’t rely solely on me at the top.

What the data says:
According to research from Harvard Business School, teams with high psychological safety are more effective under pressure, more collaborative, and more open to innovation. In other words, vulnerability isn’t a liability – it’s a leadership asset that fuels trust and performance in high-stakes environments.

Let the Team Shape the Culture

Before my sabbatical, I assumed it was my job to define our team’s culture. I thought I had to set the tone, the rules, the values. But in hindsight, that approach was limiting. It didn’t invite ownership or buy-in.

After I returned, I took a different approach. At a team retreat, I walked in with just a list of questions, such as:

· What do we want the business to say about us when we’re not in the room?

· What leadership principles are non-negotiable for our team?

· What does success look like, individually and as a team?

From that conversation, we built a shared mission and identity. One that we all believed in. That alignment began to show up everywhere – from how we hired, to how we handled conflict, to how we represented the legal function across the company.

What the data says:
According to McKinsey research, organisations that foster a strong shared purpose and engage employees in defining their values see higher engagement and greater resilience – especially during disruption. Teams connected to their purpose sustain performance and adapt more effectively under pressure.

“I made the decision to be fully transparent with my team. I told them the truth: I had burned out.”

Curate the Right Mechanisms – Then Get Out of the Way

Resilience isn’t just about mindset – it’s also about mechanics.

We reviewed every team mechanism we had:

· Our 1:1s

· Team meetings

· Decision-making processes

· Ownership over external stakeholder relationships

We asked: Are these helping us thrive – or just keeping us busy?

We made changes. Meetings got sharper. Roles became clearer. Communication improved across functions. And most importantly, team members felt more empowered to make decisions without constant top-down input.

What the data says:
According to BCG’s 2023 research on resilient organisations, high-performing teams in volatile environments share key enablers: clear governance, empowered decision-making, and agile ways of working. These factors help teams adapt quickly and deliver stronger results – particularly in complex, cross-functional settings.

Why This Matters Now

Legal departments today are facing a new wave of volatility:

· Generative AI is transforming how we work

· Regulations are evolving faster than ever

· Stakeholders expect faster, sharper, more strategic advice

But resilience isn’t just about riding out these changes. It’s about growing through them.

And that growth starts with you.

As General Counsel, you’re not just a legal expert. You’re a culture setter. A system architect. A signal to your team about how to show up when things get hard.

Questions to Reflect On

Here are three coaching questions to ask yourself as you think about your team’s resilience:

1. What part of my leadership model is overdue for a reset?

2. Where can I invite my team to co-create solutions instead of directing them?

3. Which mechanisms need to change to support a more empowered, adaptive team?

Closing

The best time to build resilience is before the next crisis hits.

Looking back, my burnout in 2020 was a painful but necessary teacher. It taught me that resilience doesn’t come from pushing harder – it comes from leading differently.

So if you’re leading a team through uncertainty today, consider this an invitation: to pause, to reflect, and to rebuild from a place of purpose.

Because the most resilient legal departments are not just surviving change. They’re leading it.

About the author:

Lynette Ooi is the founder of a boutique consulting firm, BetterWiser, which acts as an outsourced Legal Innovation team for law firms and legal departments. Lynette brings 18 years of experience both in private practice and in-house legal, most recently as a regional General Counsel for Fortune 500 companies PayPal and Amazon. As a lawyer and a trained executive coach, Lynette brings strategic and human-centric approach to technology change management for law firms and legal departments.

To follow Lynette’s insights and thoughts, subscribe to her newsletter Innovate Legal

Lynette Ooi
Email: lynette@betterwiser.com

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