Five Leadership Lessons We Can Learn from Geese

Insights on Teamwork and Success

If you’ve ever seen a flock of geese flying overhead, you’ve probably noticed their unique “V” formation. It turns out that the inherent nature of geese in flight has a lot to teach us about leadership, connection, and teamwork.

READ ON for five ways geese teach us how to show up, share vulnerability, take the lead, and care for ourselves and each other at work.

1. Enhanced Efficiency through Teamwork

• As each goose flaps its wings, it creates an “uplift” for the birds that follow. By flying in a “V” formation, the whole flock adds 71% greater range than if each bird flew alone.
• Lesson: People who share a common sense of direction, connection, and community can move forward and succeed more quickly and easily because they are traveling on the thrust of one another.

2. The Power of Staying Together

• When a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of flying alone. It quickly moves back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird immediately in front of it.
• Lesson: When we emulate the wise, innate ways of a goose, we stay in formation with those headed where we are, accepting their help and offering our help to others in reciprocity.

3. Shared Leadership and Responsibility

• When the lead goose tires, it rotates back into the formation, and another goose flies to the leadership point position.
• Lesson: It pays to take turns doing the hard tasks and sharing leadership. As with geese, people are interdependent on each other’s skills, capabilities, and unique arrangements of gifts, talents, or resources. This shared responsibility and accountability is at the heart of connected teams.

4. Encouragement and Support

• Geese flying in formation honk to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.
• Lesson: It’s important that our “honking” is encouraging. In groups where there is encouragement, productivity is much greater. The power of encouragement, i.e., to stand by one’s heart or core values and encourage the heart and core of others, is the quality of “honking” or the culture of connection we all genuinely desire.

5. Standing by Each Other in Tough Times

• When a goose gets sick, wounded, or shot down, two geese drop out of formation and follow it down to support, assist, and protect their colleague. They stay until it dies or can fly again. Then, they launch a new formation or catch up with the flock.
• Lesson: Again, when we mirror the instinctive behaviors of geese, we stand by each other in difficult times as well as in thriving times.

It really is TRUE that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander! LEARN MORE about how to strengthen your team, build your leadership skills, and cultivate connection by reaching out to Powers Resource Center today to learn about our leadership development and team training programs. www.powersresourcecenter.com

“Lessons from Geese” was transcribed from a speech given by Angeles Arrien at the 1991 Organizational Development Network and is based on the work of Milton Olson. This article was originally published at www.powersresourcecenter.com/blog and is one of PRC’s most visited blog posts.