Patrick Lencioni once said, “The absence of vulnerability… that’s where it starts. Everything else—the lack of conflict, the false harmony, the slow decisions—flows from that.”
When I read this quote, it hit me as an “aha” moment—not because it was surprising, but because it was so familiar. I’ve seen it play out again and again in executive teams: smart, experienced leaders who’ve forgotten that leadership is meant to be noble, not cool; grounded, not guarded; responsible, not rewarded. And when that sense of responsibility fades, the first thing to evaporate is vulnerability.
And that’s exactly where the horses come in. Horses simply don’t buy your leadership persona.
In equine assisted leadership development, we always brief our clients with: to learn from horses, you need to be both brave and vulnerable. Horses respond to the real you, not the version you’ve polished for boardrooms and strategy off-sites.
There’s no hiding, no spin, no “I’ll deal with that later.”
A horse can tell immediately whether you’re congruent, whether you’re present, whether your energy matches your intention. And if it doesn’t? They’ll show you. Gently, honestly, and without judgement—but unmistakably.
It’s confronting. Sometimes you won’t like what you see.
But it’s real. And that makes it a turning point.
Lencioni is right: vulnerability is the starting point. Without it, teams fall into false harmony. They avoid the real conversations. They make slower, safer decisions because no one’s willing to risk honesty. They lose their spark, their edge, their courage.
When leaders step into the arena with a horse, they’re often surprised by how quickly those patterns surface.
- A leader reluctant to ask for help struggles to ask a horse to move.
- A leader who overcontrols finds the horse resisting.
- A leader who avoids conflict freezes the moment the horse pushes a boundary.
The behaviour is different, but the pattern is the same. The arena becomes a mirror—one that can’t be negotiated with.
Sounds scary – but it’s not. It’s empowering!
Working with horses reminds us that vulnerability isn’t weakness. It’s clarity. It’s coherence. It’s the willingness to be seen, rather than to perform.
And it takes bravery.
Not the big heroic kind—just the everyday courage to drop the armour for a moment and let your team, your horse, and yourself see what’s actually going on.
Because once vulnerability is on the table, everything else becomes possible:
- real conflict
- real commitment
- real accountability
- real results
The gift horses give leaders is a clean slate – a real chance to change. They don’t hold grudges. They don’t judge your past decisions. They don’t care about your KPIs.
They simply respond.
That immediate, honest feedback gives leaders something rare: the chance to change in real time. The chance to try again. To shift a behaviour, an intention, an approach—and to see instantly what difference it makes.
And when leaders take those lessons back to the office, teams feel it.
- That newfound congruence.
- That willingness to be open.
- That sense of responsibility returning to its rightful place.
When vulnerability returns, leadership stops being about protecting yourself and becomes about serving others again. It becomes noble. It becomes human. And, as Lencioni says, everything else flows from that.
Horses accelerate that shift because they demand authenticity. They make vulnerability practical, embodied, and unforgettable.
And in a world full of constant distractions and uncertainty, that might be the most powerful leadership development tool we have.
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