Editorial: Emotional resilience for wellbeing and employability: the role of learning and training, volume II

Abstract

Emotional resilience has become a significant topic for researchers and educators who seek to understand what helps young people cope with stress when changing jobs or entering the job market.While considerable attention has been devoted to resilience in early childhood and clinical settings, its role in relation to the transition to adult life, employability and the nature of work has received more attention only in recent years (see Vol. 1 of Emotional Resilience for Wellbeing and Employability:The Role of Learning and Training). Resilience is now viewed as both an individual trait and a competence that can be developed through educational interventions and workplace practices (Smaliukienė et al., 2024).The ability to adapt positively in the face of adversity is particularly important in work and career contexts, where emotional demands, uncertainty and changing conditions are constant. During the pandemic, studies documented the psychological strain experienced by students, employees, and job seekers, highlighting the ways in which stress, anxiety, and social isolation interfered with learning, motivation, and career planning (Dost, 2025). In this context, interest in emotional resilience as a potential enabler of employability and a buffer against negative outcomes has grown. At the same time, scholars have highlighted the trainable nature of resilience, suggesting that structured interventions, educational practices and coaching models could develop these capacities. However, the evidence base on how emotional resilience can be developed through learning and training remains fragmented. Although progress has been made in identifying key emotional and cognitive factors, such as self-regulation and adaptability, there are still gaps in understanding of the pedagogical processes and conditions through which emotional resilience contributes to well-being and employability across different groups of people. This special issue brings together ten studies that address these concerns. The issue includes empirical and conceptual contributions that examine the development of emotional resilience through training, coaching, leadership and institutional learning contexts. Taken together, the papers offer evidencebased insights into how emotional resilience is cultivated, how it supports professional development and the role that educational and organisational systems can play in enabling these outcomes.Research shows that emotional resilience can be developed. It is also becoming increasingly important to understand the psychological and educational factors that help people to develop this skill. Emotional resilience does not depend solely on personality. It is also shaped by leadership style; the level of support people feel they receive from their organisation and how well their personal values align with the work environment. The following studies explore how personal characteristics, and the work environment influence emotional involvement and resilience for employability. 2024) explore emotional resilience in the military context through the lens of secure base leadership (SBL). drawing on attachment theory and the job demands-resources model, their study with 363 military cadets reveals that SBL increases emotional resilience indirectly through its impact on work (service) engagement. Here, leadership provides not only direction but also emotional reassurance, autonomy support, and psychological safety, which are conditions that help trainees internalize challenges as developmental opportunities rather than stressors. They also found that the mediating role of engagement is very important: the study suggests that resilience is not rooted directly, but fostered through motivational mechanisms tied to perceptions of safety, relatedness, and challenge. These findings are especially relevant for high-stress environments, where leadership must simultaneously increase discipline and emotional support. The results underscore the devel