How are you leading? Horses can show you.
“Mia,” I asked. “How might I deal with a highly intelligent executive team member who I know is going to fight me during a team meeting I’m leading?”
“Back him up and praise the hell out of him,” she said.
During a three-day horse behavior workshop in Denmark with Mia, one of the world’s leading horse behavior experts, I watched her repeatedly use her energy to gently and firmly cause many horses to back up if they were not following her directions. This move shows the horses that she is the leader.
Then, she invited the horses to follow a command, and then praised the hell out of the horses by speaking to them with positive tones, rubbing their necks, and physically connecting with them. This repeated pattern showed the horses, in a way they could understand, to trust Mia.
It’s fascinating how similar human behavior can be to horses. This metaphorical advice also worked with my spirited team member during our team meeting, too.
After my team member reacted with a predictable, disrupting outburst during the team meeting, I called a break. ?I pulled him aside, told him he was brilliant, asked him to trust me, and then gently pointed out where his behavior was blocking him from what he wanted.
From my training as a coach, I understood that his innocent intention was to protect himself, not be difficult. His behavior was a symptom of fear. He couldn’t see that he was putting himself at risk, however, by disrupting and building resentment from the team.
He seemed to hear me. His disruptive behavior was a blind spot for him. He was unaware how his behavior was backfiring against him.
The rest of the meeting proceeded more smoothly, and he shifted into behaving more like a collaborative genius instead of difficult challenger. That was an important tipping point, and this enabled the team to make progress towards getting over some of the roadblocks in their sticky team dynamics.
This is an example of applying “pull” leadership.
Horses, and Mia, really showed me this. And I’ll explain more of what I mean, below.
First, when you hear the rest of Mia’s story, you’ll probably want to consider what Mia and the horses might teach us.?
Meet a masterful leader… of horses
Mia Lykke Nielsen might be one of the most talented horse trainers on Earth. There are only a few people in my life I’ve met who are at a mastery level in their field. Even fewer who are also masterful human beings—kind, humble, confident, service oriented, graceful, and authentic. Dr. Jane Goodall is one of them. Mia is another.
Like Dr. Goodall, Mia had a rare opportunity at a young age to become immersed in an animal species and intuitively study their behavior.
Mia grew up around horses in a small rural village in Denmark. She dreamed of having her own horse, but abhorred the violence used in traditional training methods. When she was about 17 years old, she had all but given up on her dream of competing with horses after several setbacks. But her sister found a newspaper clipping for a horse training internship in the California desert at the Viking Saga Ranch. Mia applied for the job and found herself on an adventure across the world that would forever change her life.
Fate had a twist in store for Mia. Instead of getting the training job, the owner of the ranch, Elisabeth Haug, saw a deeper potential in Mia. She gave Mia a special assignment to count her herd of 300 wild Icelandic horses each day. This entailed hours a day wandering hundreds of acres in the desert wilderness by herself to keep track of the herd. Mia ended up doing this work for a few years. Like Goodall, this gave her quite a unique perspective on horses, and she also developed a very strong and independent character.
Eventually, Mia earned acceptance by the herd of wild horses, and she absorbed the nuances of their hierarchy, social structure, and communication.
Under the mentorship of Elisabeth, Mia also gained exposure to the famous “horse whisperer” Tom Dorrance (from the famous movie), as well as renowned trainers Pat Parelli and Monty Roberts.?
One day, after a couple of years counting the herd, Elisabeth invited Mia to train her horses. Mia stepped into the ring and mimicked Elisabeth and other trainers she had observed. However, Elisabeth stopped her and said, “no—train them your way. Train them the way they taught you.”
Mia’s thousands of hours by herself with the herd, almost a rite of passage, paid off. She developed a profoundly effective training method she calls “When Horses Choose.” In the past decades, Mia has trained and rehabilitated thousands of horses around the world, from wild Mustangs to broken show horses—many of which were deemed too wild, untrainable, or even destined for slaughter because of abusive injuries. Mia is on a mission to change the way humans train and treat horses.
What entrepreneurs, CEOs and leaders and managers can learn from Mia’s work with leading horses
Mia’s passion, talent, and dedication to her vision for humane, intelligent, and cooperative treatment of horses is inspiring. This level of commitment and persistence alone is something we can all learn from as entrepreneurs and leaders.
However, there are many other levels to learn from in this story. On one level, Mia’s life is an example of what purposeful work, or what Joseph Campbell calls “following your bliss,” looks like. When she works with horses, she's just in a flow all the time and doesn't seem to tire. It’s incredible to experience and observe this, firsthand.
We can apply this insight to ourselves as we pursue our own authentic mastery. When we align our talent with our inspiration, we have a guiding vision that helps us flow with the inevitable difficulties of life.
And we can also use this information to help align our teams around the “sweet spot” of their unique talents and what they enjoy doing without effort. Harness this kind of energy in your team and you won’t have to waste time and energy “motivating” people. Push strategies have never worked in the history of business except through short-term fear tactics and brute force—not a sustainable strategy, as we have seen time and time again in both business and politics.
On another level, Mia’s example can teach us about embodied leadership from the way she interacts with horses and teaches people how to lead the horses. For me, working with horses has been one of the most valuable shortcuts I’ve experienced because I could see from the horses’ reaction how I was carrying myself as a leader. The horses are like a mirror, and I could observe what it felt like in my body when I wasn’t being followed, and what it felt like to really connect with the animal.
To have a horse follow you, you can’t fake it, or be tense. You must be relaxed, present, and confident. Working with horses is one of the fastest and most remarkable ways to expose and correct your leadership blind spots, and you can immediately apply the embodied insights in your work with leading humans, too.
Working with horses also helped me see the obvious difference between “push” and “pull” leadership, which is something I really try to model in my life and underscore with my executive coaching clients.
For example, “Push” leadership is when a leader adds pressure, fear, punishment, and focuses on the undesirable behavior as if it’s a person’s identity. This framing makes it harder for a person to perform. Punitive behavioral interventions don’t work well with horses—or people. Why? Because we ignore the root cause of the behavior.
Replacing behavior with another behavior almost never sticks if people don’t want to do something, or they’re scared to do something. Undesirable behavior is always a symptom of an underlying fear. This fundamental understanding of behavior is crucial as a leader but is often overlooked. People do not perform very well when they’re insecure. Neither do horses. And we can experience this dynamic viscerally in the arena with a horse. When Mia works with a horse that has experienced a lot of fear, the first thing she does is help them get over the fear and create a safe corner for them to back off if they need a break. This is “pull” leadership.
“Pull” leadership, instead of pushing, yields a better result. For example, remind your team who they really are when they’re in their genius or in a flow state. Treat them as if they are whole and capable. This is what Mia shows with horses. It’s coaxing them into what they can create when they’re not afraid.
As the leader, don’t add to the fear or insecure behavior—most people already take care of that for you inside their own minds. Instead, demonstrate empathy and patience because undesirable behavior is typically unconscious. Take a stand for their ability to be excellent.
In my experience, people usually want to be successful in their work and contribute meaningfully to a team. This is a fundamental human need. So instead of beating the fear out of someone, take a stand for the person’s potential, believe in them, and redirect your team’s creative energy towards their best traits. Pull them along with you, away from the fear, and remind them of their naturally creative ability to learn and problem solve. Or if they’re not experienced at the tasks assigned, or the timeline to learn the skill is too short for what your business needs, help them find another role where their talents naturally align, inside or outside of your company.
Embodied, natural leadership
My family had the rare opportunity to spend a few days with Mia at her stables near Copenhagen, Denmark last summer. We had the chance to watch her in action with a wide variety of horses, and she taught us how to use our bodies and energy to interact with them in their language. It was an incredible experience and boosted the confidence of our pre-teen girls to see that they could lead a massive animal. Teenage bullies at school look insignificant by comparison.
Anyone who has spent significant time with horses will know it is magical when you sync up with one of these majestic animals. There’s incredible power you can feel emanating from them, but also a deep presence.
This possibility of deep connection is also there when we interact with other people. We just forget and get in our heads, protect our egos, and treat other people as linear, rational subjects. Working with horses unlocks our natural nonverbal communication we relied on when we were immersed more closely with nature for millennia, but now ignore in the modern world or brush off as woo woo.
In my experience with taking people into nature on “vision quests,” as part of my coaching practice, I help them reconnect with a more natural way of relating to themselves and the world. Take someone into nature for five minutes or have them really drop into a present state with horses, and there’s an obvious and visceral shift in state.
One of the most impressive moments I witnessed with Mia was watching her coax a completely untrained horse, who was quite skittish, into trusting her. Mia showed the horse he could use the corner of the corral as a safe zone if it didn’t want to engage with Mia’s requests. After seeing it had an option, and could communicate its preference, Mia then gently invited and led the horse to play with her and the horse started to follow a few commands. This only took about twenty minutes.
Then, she invited me to lead the horse, which had been completely wild just a few minutes before, around the training pen without a rope. With Mia’s coaching, I could relax and just hold my hand under the horse’s chin and calmly use my energy to pull it along. I couldn’t believe it. No “breaking” necessary. My pre-teen kids could even interact safely with this, and many other horses, after Mia’s gentle intervention.
And it’s my belief that we can lead people in the same way. Pull—not push.
Come experience Mia in action with the horses in July!
I hope you’ve benefitted from this story and will have a look at some of the incredible videos of Mia’s work on YouTube or her website.
But even better, I want to make this real for you and bring you along with me this summer to Mia’s stables.
Mia and I will lead a two-day equine coaching workshop for leaders at her stables this July 28-30th near Copenhagen, Denmark.? (We may also open another workshop in upstate New York in early October – stay tuned.?Please reach out if you’re interested.)
We have room for 6-8 leaders. Because we’re just announcing the program with short notice, we are also open to working with a team or group of multiple people from your company if someone is interested.
This is a rare chance to work with Mia and me together as we share our unique combination of expertise in behavior, human performance, and leadership.?Through a mix of working directly with horses under Mia’s guidance, and some guided group coaching conversations with me and Mia about how you might apply insights into your work, you will walk away with a very memorable and life-changing experience.
Here are a couple of outcomes I’ve seen for myself and others. You will get a better sense of how your lead. For example, if you’re insecure, you’ll probably get closer to getting over it. If you’re coming across with too much “push” or an overbearing style, the horses, and coaches, will show you and you’ll have a safe space to explore other ways of leading with a like-minded group.
This workshop could be the catalyst for a massive breakthrough for you, as working with horses has been for me. We will have a lot of fun interacting with a small group of impact-oriented leaders and the horses. The countryside in Denmark is gorgeous and peaceful, and we will have a fantastic time connecting in a deep and meaningful way.
This is one of the most exciting programs I’ve ever put together, and I am excited to invite you into Mia’s remarkable world.?Here is a link to the sign-up:
Great article. Helpful in my business and a reminder about Mia’s power which I’ve witnessed in person a bit.