Leadchange. Experience - the difference

Making the connection

Increasingly the best of breed lead not by virtue of power alone, but by excelling in the art of relationship, the singular expertise that the changing business climate renders indispensable. Leadership excellence is being redefined in interpersonal terms. (From ‘Primal Leadership – Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence’, Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee)

David, a delegate on a LeadChange workshop, started the day saying ‘I don’t see what horses can teach me about leadership in the workplace’. However, he was open to the possibility, and willing to engage in the learning process.

When it came to his 1:1 coaching experience with a horse, David said that he wanted to improve his relationship with the people in his team – he felt that he did not connect with them. He was invited to ‘connect’ with a horse at liberty (i.e. without head-collar or lead-rope) as a metaphor for connecting with his team of work colleagues.

David approached the horse and started to stroke it. After a few minutes, I asked him to rate the level of connection he felt with the horse, on a scale of 0-10, where 10 was ‘perfectly connected’. His reply, which was readily endorsed by other delegates observing him, was that there was ‘zero connection’.

I invited Dave to step away from the horse, and asked him about the people in his life with whom he felt connected – and how he knew that he connected with them. He talked about the connection he had with his wife and children, and after a few moments’ thought, indicated that he felt that connection in his body (rather than in his head) - in the area of his chest (heart).

With that sense of connectedness, he approached the horse again. It was immediately obvious that a connection now existed – the horse turned towards David, and as he started to walk, the horse followed him freely around the arena.

David’s learning from horses about leadership in the workplace was that connection with a team is a matter of ‘heart’ as well as ‘head’. His experience with a horse made him aware, both of what he needed to change, and how to change it. The horse’s response was powerful evidence of David’s ability to make that change. His new awareness enabled him to make the same choice in the workplace, and really connect with his team.

100% leadership?

Paul (not his real name) was CEO of the UK division of a global pharmaceutical company when he participated in a LeadChange workshop. His experience illustrates the power and accuracy of the 'equine mirror'.

In a 1:1 session, Paul was being coached on his approach to achieving company objectives. He told the coach: 'as a business, we set objectives each year – and if we achieve 80% of them, we feel we that have been successful'. As the coaching progressed, Paul made a connection with the horse, and walked with it at liberty (no head-collar or lead-rope) around the perimeter of a large round pen. 80% of the way round the horse walked away from Paul and stood in the middle of the pen. Observers wanted to know how we (the facilitators) 'trained the horse to do that'!

Of course, the horse had not been trained. Paul was running the pattern ‘80% is a result’ and the horse’s highly-tuned sensitivity to energy picked up that feeling of achievement as Paul completed 80% of the circuit. He began to realise that his managers and employees might also be responding to the same subtle signals, and relaxing when the business had achieved 80% of its annual objectives!

Paul re-ran the exercise – this time maintaining 100% focus – and the horse faithfully followed him all the way round. The experience made him much more aware of what he was communicating at work through subtle, non-verbal signals, and of the importance of maintaining focus to deliver 100%.

What would the equine mirror reflect back to you about your leadership?

Who do you
think you are?

At LeadChange, we work mainly with corporate executives and teams. Independent consultants and coaches also come on our ‘Courses with Horses’ to develop communication skills and improve business performance. Their expertise is not usually in sales, and they sometimes have issues around new business generation.

Peter, a business consultant, asked for coaching on his approach to potential new clients. He was good at what he did, but felt some awkwardness when meeting people to sell them his services. We introduced him to Molly, a friendly mare, and set up an interaction in which she would represent (as a living metaphor) one of his potential clients.

As Peter approached Molly, she walked towards him – hesitated, stopped, then turned and walked away. I asked Peter what was going on that might have discouraged her from coming right up to greet him. He revealed that when he approached potential clients, he lacked confidence and had low self-belief. He was doing a lot of thinking – about himself and how others perceived him – which was getting in the way of him making a natural, personal connection (the voice in his head was saying that they would see him as a fraud).

Molly’s response made Peter aware of the energy he was creating and communicating through his over-active thought processes and self-limiting beliefs - and how this energy adversely affected his client meetings.

Through coaching, Peter was able to let go of these negative patterns, centre himself and connect with who he really was - a capable, resourceful and trustworthy human being. Silencing the voice of his ‘inner critic’, and trusting in himself, he made a strong connection with Molly – who was then happy to follow him at liberty (no rope or head-collar) around the arena.

Peter learned that he had to trust himself before clients would trust him!

What you see
is what you get

Many successful people in various occupations, including business, sport and the performing arts, are aware of the benefits and power of visualisation. Horse riders who show jump also learn that the outcome they visualise is usually the one they get (“I just knew he was going to put in a stop at that fence . . !”).

Bernadette, an I.T. project leader and keen amateur horsewoman, wanted help with a business project she was running which was not working out for her. We worked with her and her own horse, Vince, at the livery yard where he was kept.

In the coaching session, Vince represented the business project; a successful outcome would be to have him follow Bernadette at liberty around the arena in a figure-of-eight pattern. Despite her long-standing relationship with her equine partner, Bernadette was initially unable to persuade him to go with her. She made a number of ‘false starts’ – taking a few steps towards her goal - but Vince steadfastly refused to follow.

Coaching questions revealed that, with this particular project and with Vince in the arena, Bernadette was visualising failure instead of success. She was seeing the project stalling, and seeing Vince refusing to follow. These thoughts were generating lack confidence and low levels of belief in her ability to achieve the results she wanted. Following encouragement to visualise successful outcomes - the project working, and Vince following her – he walked at her shoulder as she completed the figure-of-eight.

The learning was simple: visualising successful outcomes builds confidence and belief to levels which make achievement possible. Many of us accept this as a theoretical concept; working with Vince, Bernadette was given moment-by-moment feedback on the powerful energy and positive results she was able to create through visualisation.

What you see is, so often, what you get!

Passive-aggressive
or quietly assertive?

Horses have been described, with reasonable accuracy, as ‘half-a-ton of emotional flight animal’. The ability to manage your emotions around them is definitely an advantage!

Felicity, an executive in a global I.T. company, and a horse owner, came on one of the very first LeadChange events. She recognised her behaviour at work tended to be ‘passive-aggressive’, and wanted to learn instead how to be ‘quietly assertive’.

Felicity went into a round pen with George, a highly sensitive Arab horse, and was given the task of asking him to trot. To encourage him to move, she was handed a three-foot length of thin rope to swing behind him (without touching). She started to swing the rope, at first gently, and then with increasing energy, until it was whirling around as fast as she could make it go. George ignored her – the more she swung the rope, the more relaxed he became - until he was almost asleep. It was as if he knew that ‘she didn’t mean it’.

I asked Felicity to step away from George, and coached her to a place where she could access what it means (and how it feels) to be quietly assertive; a state of ‘meaning it’ without aggression. She had initially expressed a view that ‘quietly assertive’ was somewhere on a scale between passive and aggressive – but came to realise that it was a completely different quality, on another scale altogether.

Felicity quietly approached George again, with an intention that he would trot. She quietly swung the rope through 90 degrees (quarter of a turn from vertical to horizontal) – at which he immediately trotted smartly and willingly around the pen.

Felicity had discovered the difference between being passive-aggressive and quietly assertive. What kind of work experience would we have if more of us made the same discovery?