Leadership lessons from the Horses

As the idiom goes “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink” or from the horse’s perspective, they can teach you how to lead them, but they can’t force you to practice leadership. You up for learning?

I identify with what I call Whole Life Leadership more than I identify with the traditional, hierarchal or patriarchal roles of leadership that we still see practiced today. I’m certain if you’re at all like me you too hold a number of these roles or titles and may be exploring new ways to Be in leadership within their context. It’s undeniable to me that having horses in my life, in whatever ways I could dream up or create since childhood, were relationships that were always teaching me about my ever-evolving self, leadership and it wasn’t hierarchal!

Another way I express Whole Life Leadership is the who I’m Being in the Doing of my life and How this impacts my relationships, be it horse, human, other species or global impact. This even informs my intrapersonal relationship with myself. Have you ever looked at your leadership this way?

In my experiences with the horses, either as a horseperson or facilitator, moment by moment, it requires that I sense into and embody my leadership. I say this, except for those times when I’m not either as a result of distraction, fear or I’ve consciously checked out. When I fail to create or break this connection, the results aren’t usually that fun, safe or pleasant. This is why working with the horses is such an amazing growth opportunity to develop ourselves, our leadership skillsets, and no you don’t have to be a horseperson.

Organically the horses show us where we’re brilliant and nudge us towards recognizing our growth edges. This is because leadership of oneself for the sake of the relationship is a pre-requisite. I would even say it’s a deal breaker if you plan on actioning or doing anything together. It’s the only relationship in the world that demands you show up fully as a Human-Being and leave the voices and ego-driven personas of the Human-Doing at the gate. It’s contextually based, experiential learning at its finest devoid of ego or judgement from your partners, the horses, that absolutely raises our awareness and levels of consciousness.

Have you heard the phrase “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink”? Well, it’s true, here’s why and there’s more to it. Leading a horse requires leadership in the form of creating a trusted relationship. He must be a willing follower as there’s no way you can force this upon him, unless resorting to aggressive tactics. You might get him there but still you can’t force him to drink. He’s got to trust you to lead him there and then he gets to decide what’s the next move as he’s now in the lead, it’s his choice to drink. Horses are always at choice and co-create with you, or not. The distinction being, in this inter-species relationship, that trust is not assumed via the role or the fact that you hold what may be considered the advantage or control end of the lead rope. Not so. Horses are very large, powerful animals. Being in their presence can be disorienting, let alone demanding or expecting something out of them because you want it. In my opinion it’s diversity work at its finest; think about it, you don’t even speak the same language!

Leading a horse to water requires you to communicate energetically what you’re up to, and clear definition of who is leading. It has you embody your leadership by feeling and sensing, while energetically laying out your vision creating that larger container of trust for this prey animal. This is you becoming congruent as your internal landscape is aligned with the big picture of what you’re doing, who you’re being and why, together. Horses are always in states of congruence and therefore looking to you for this. Your intention — we are going from here to there, together. Your mission — you’ve not drank for hours and need hydration as it’s critical to your wellbeing. Your impact — the horses health needs are being met. And lastly, your outcome — drink now if you’re actually thirsty, and it’s ultimately your choice.

Working developmentally with horses has us wake up, become super present and grounded while activating parts of ourselves such as sensing into and communicating beyond words. Imagine 1100 lbs. of horsepower providing a continuous, sensory feedback loop!

This summer a colleague was facilitating an experience with the horses with me. We needed to move four horses from the herd from one field to another for our workshop. I asked her if she was up to helping me lead the horses one by one. She had never done this before, isn’t a horse person, and was literally leading the way for us, or taking the front position meaning horse was not going to be following me and my horse, so she really had to step into her leadership, literally taking the lead. I knew she had this. I was ready to step in and support her should things start to unravel as horses are often very herd bound and don’t necessarily want to be separated from one another which is what we were doing. It was highly probable resistance in the form of planting their feet and not moving, turning and heading back to the herd, or acting up in protest were potential challenges I could foresee.

After we’d successfully moved the four horses, I checked in with her on her experience. I wanted to acknowledge her courage and leadership as things went off without a glitch. She shared that she was aware this was a big step, and she felt into that place of “I’ve got this, let’s go horse” or her self-authority. She was committed to the activity, she knew where we were going, and why. After all we had a workshop, we were co-facilitating, with these amazing creatures that she was super excited about which further fueled her enthusiasm. This is a contributing factor as she mentioned that she felt safe in our relationship and that I entrusted this task upon her, knowing that together we would get the job done.

What made this activity successful? She fully stepped into and embodied leadership for the sake of, and together we co-created trust. We all, horses included, felt into the congruence and away we all went!

Horses are no different than humans in our needs to feel safe; it’s a core need of belonging. As a prey species they’re always assessing their safety and therefore demand a strong sense of leadership to “join up in partnership” with you or with other horses in a herd; that place of belonging. In the spaces of people such as work cultures, or on teams, this leadership skillset is what’s being termed today as “psychological safety”. In the story above you can see how together we co-created a psychological safety net, and it was all encompassing. It was energetically communicated allowing the horses to sense into and choose to follow our lead. With horse’s however, safety is an ever-required, active input, always being established and re-established, moment by moment. Never is it assumed or just spoken into a relationship like at the onset of a meeting. It’s either being created energetically in the contextual and relational space, being felt and sensed, or its not.

One break in the trust link between horse and human, and the chain of established leadership is broken. The feedback is instant, and the horse will automatically assume the role where you may find yourself at the opposite end of the lead rope or left somewhere behind!

Here’s another example which in hindsight I’m grateful for and that taught me, once again, a lesson about my impact. Heading home this summer from a glorious day back-country horseback riding I decided to check my phone and see if I had cell reception. I mean heck, I’d been off the grid for 6 hours, it was time to check in with my outside world and see what was going on. My riding partner, Harley, is a tried and true fellow, and I felt it was okay to just loosen the reins, tune into my cell phone, and let him walk on carrying us safely home. I kid you not, I totally tuned everything out, like one does when that device gets in our hands and I was sitting on top of a horse! Within minutes Harley came to a hard, abrupt stop which snapped me out of my cellphone daze. One of my long western reins had dropped so low that it got caught between his legs! Thank goodness he didn’t freak out and bolt which would have resulted in me falling off, and a reasonable fight or flight, instinctual response on his behalf. You see the reins could be perceived as snakes or something trying to confine his leg movements and horses need their legs to carry them to safety. I couldn’t believe how neglectful and checked out I was. I risked the safety of us both, as well as the other riders and their horses. Such a simple thing that could have resulted in injuries to many! That was feedback I had a hard time swallowing, with a healthy dose of embarrassment. I know better and never would I intend to endanger the horses or people yet here I had put us all at risk.

The ongoing feedback loop, either while riding or when working developmentally with the horses, provides us with opportunity after opportunity to look at our attention, intention, and impact, and practice our agility at “recovering to lead”.

You’ve just read how easy it is to break the energetic connection of leadership and the potential results. As experienced as I am with the horses, the minute I let my mind wander, become distracted or allow fear in, I drop my leadership and relational connection. The horse is now at free will and liberty to take over and assume leadership and safety for itself.

Back to the drinking horse metaphor…. We really have no control and working with horses is unpredictable; rarely is there an ideal situation yet so, so much opportunity for observation, growth and learning about ourselves. So why does it bother us so when they choose not to drink; attachment to outcomes maybe? Great topic for more leadership lessons from the Herd!

Where might you have let go of the reins of leadership in your life?

What’s one opportunity for you to pick them up and recover to leading?

What’s possible for you if you embody a whole life leadership approach?

What’s a lesson you’ve learned that was a wake-up call to your impact, intended or not?

Out beyond ideas of right doing and wrong doing is a field, the horses and I will meet you there, where we suspend judgement and where our souls and hearts may come together.

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ps-Rain gear and boots might be required this time of year ;-)