Leaders are particularly challenged in times of crisis and adversity, as they are expected to support the ones they lead while also having to cope themselves. Thus, the concept of psychological resilience has become of crucial importance to leadership research. We synthesize 164 empirical studies on leadership and psychological resilience and offer an integrative literature review. Despite increasing interest in the resilience of leaders and followers, theory is still about to switch from relatively well-established intrapersonal perspectives that consider either the leaders or their followers to the required interpersonal leader-follower perspective. To acknowledge this current state of research and point to directions for future research, we build a multi-perspective leader-follower framework. We discuss how leadership as a social process is not only shaped by, but also influences, the resilience of leaders and their followers. Our synthesis of this field of literature is supposed to guide future research toward the contagion of resilience through social interactions and the role that leader-follower (in)congruence in resilience plays in this transmission. Such an elaborate understanding is important to inform organizational practices about the value of psychological resilience, offer insights into how to spread resilience across an organization, and address leaders’ responsibilities in this regard.
