Our recent leadership cohort client group had just completed their CliftonStrengths profiling as part of their professional development. Wanting to better understand the framework and the conversations we’d be having together, I decided to complete my own assessment for the first time.

One of the unexpected gifts of this experience was the reminder to stay curious about tools like CliftonStrengths and other self-awareness tools.

While no assessment can fully define who we are, they can offer valuable insights into the talents, motivations and patterns that shape how we show up in the world.

Sometimes they help us understand why certain roles, careers or ways of working feel so energising and natural. Other times, they highlight opportunities for growth or strengths we’ve been overlooking.

My top five strengths are:
– Individualisation
– Empathy
– Connectedness
– Developer
– Arranger

At first glance, I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of them. Especially Individualisation as number one. But as I started reading the descriptions and digging deeper into the behaviours and traits behind each strength, something clicked.

These strengths were describing the “Why” for me. Why I feel the fit of the work I do. Why it motivates and energises me.

Individualisation – seeing people for who they truly are, recognising their uniqueness and potential.

Empathy – understanding what others may be experiencing and meeting them where they are.

Connectedness – helping people see the bigger picture and the impact of their actions.

Developer – believing in growth and patiently supporting people as they discover what’s possible.

Arranger – bringing together complexity, people and experiences in ways that create clarity and momentum.

As I reflected on each strength, I realised how naturally they show up in my work as a leadership and team development coach. And even more so with the assistance of my four-legged co-coaches.

Horses have an incredible ability to cut through titles, roles and carefully prepared answers. They respond to authenticity, awareness and presence. They create immediate feedback and profound learning opportunities that help people better understand themselves and their impact on others.

Reading through my strengths felt less like receiving a personality profile and more like seeing my vocation reflected back to me.

It gave language to why I’m so passionate about helping leaders and teams grow through equine assisted experiences.

It reminded me that the work we are drawn to often aligns with the strengths that not only feel most natural to us, but that we develop and grow into throughout our journey.

Zach Mercurio’s article, “The Power and Urgency of Noticing,” argues that in today’s disengaged workplace, noticing—the intentional act of making people feel seen and valued—is one of the most critical leadership skills. Amid declining employee engagement and rising feelings of invisibility and neglect, Mercurio emphasises that truly seeing others is a prerequisite for trust, motivation, and performance.

In the Diamond Model of Shared Leadership ™ developed by TeachingHorse, one of the core leadership capabilities is attention. Attention is not just cognitive focus—it’s the ability to notice self, others, and the environment in real time, with awareness and intention.

In the Diamond Model, shared leadership is dynamic and responsive, not hierarchical or fixed. Attention enables this responsiveness by allowing leaders at all levels to:

• Perceive shifts in the environment.
• Adapt to changing needs.
• Support others in stepping into leadership roles when the moment calls for it.

Just as horses in a herd are constantly attuned to one another and their surroundings, Mercurio’s findings show that teams respond and perform best to leaders who notice first, act second. This ensures leadership is grounded in real-time relational intelligence.

Noticing is the behavioural expression of attention. It is not passive —it is an active skill. By noticing ourselves, others, and our environment with intention and care, we enable meaningful connection, situational awareness, and adaptive leadership.

What a year 2022 has been! As it draws to a close, I just wanted to express my heartfelt gratitude to our clients, colleagues, friends and families for their wonderful support as we navigated the uncertainty of post-pandemic life.

We loved welcoming clients back to experience our programs in-person. We are in our element when we see the deep impact our equine enhanced programs have on the individuals and teams that step out of their comfort zone and into the arena.

I’m personally so grateful to the wonderful Leading Edge team. I couldn’t chose one word for the whole team. There are many words that sum up the tremendous qualities of these remarkable women.

Honest, authentic, resilient, creative, collaborative, kind, reliable, loyal, intelligent, courageous and FUN!

We all know the important role body language plays in effective communication. And we’ve all heard the statistic that the majority of human communication is actually non-verbal.

Yet, we are obsessed with speaking, and generally terrible at listening. And we are often unaware of the ways our body language is communicating louder than our words.

So how do we become more aware of our body language and the impact that has on our overall ability to communicate with others effectively?

We have help here at Leading Edge in the form of our horses. As prey and herd animals whose communication is largely non-verbal, they make us acutely aware of our own non-verbal signals. They respond to incongruent cues between words and actions that we humans emit. A French study in 2020 showed that horses can recognise and interpret our facial expressions. And it makes perfect sense as horses’ survival depends on their ability to sense even the slightest change in those around them and their environment.

There are great leadership lessons in this. To be trusted as a leader, our inside and outside need to match. And our body language can give us away – where are our eyes, are we fidgeting, what tone are we using, how is our posture, what are we doing with our hands.

During one of our team coaching programs, project manager, Sally, had given verbal directions to her team on how to tackle the task at hand. It sounded clear enough to everyone listening, but for some reason, horse team member, Vinnie, just wouldn’t move. Turns out that Sally really wasn’t so sure but thought she start the ball rolling. And her team wasn’t 100% sure either. How did Vinnie know? We can’t ask him, of course. But horses pick up on even the most subtle signs. Sally hesitated slightly and kept looking down and back indicating doubt in her suggestion. All it took was a quick team discussion to tweak Sally’s plan and have the whole team on the same page.

Do you think about your body language and its role in how effectively?

Horses always remind us about being present, because they can sense when our mind is elsewhere and will let us know.

When we aren’t present with our colleagues or even our families and friends, their feelings are likely to be the same – even if their reactions aren’t as obvious.

🐎 For example, my horse, Opal, gave me a reminder about being present during a five-day training course. It was day one and in addition to our six trainees,  we had a new client coming.

When we did our demonstration on how we work with the horses in the arena, instead of being her usual self and like one with me, Opal literally pulled me across the arena. I made it part of the demo – asking who they thought the leader was and what can happen when we don’t find our inner leader – but I was really surprised.

The session went well and afterwards I was chatting to one of the clients who said one word that hit me like a freight train.

“Presence”

I had let myself be so distracted with trying to do my best for the course participants and the new clients that I wasn’t present and Opal called me out on it. We’ve worked together for so long and I took her for granted. She called me out on that too.

In today’s world, we can struggle to remain present in the moment – we’re in a work meeting thinking about the next thing on our “to-do” list, or at home with the family but thinking about work. This is also one of the reasons that taking a genuine break can be difficult, particularly for those of us who have demanding jobs, businesses and/or responsibilities in our personal lives.

Being present in the moment is not something that necessarily comes easily to us. So, here are a few things that may help.

🧘 Try to be mindful and try to live in the now

🧘 Decide what your boundaries are with work

🧘 Set your own personal limits with technology use

Do you have any tips for remaining present? Let me know!

“Effort and courage are not enough without purpose and direction. For, as Socrates told us, “If a man does not know to what port he is sailing, no wind is favourable”.”

John F Kennedy

🗺️ This quote perfectly encapsulates why I believe purpose and direction are such an important part of leadership.

As I wrote last week, direction is one of the four qualities of a leader based on The Diamond Model of Leadership along with attention, energy and congruence.

Setting direction is an important role for any leadership group. And purpose sets the direction in a meaningful way. Without this nothing makes sense. This is not to say that the direction won’t change. In fact, change is constant in this VUCA (vulnerable, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world we live in.

📍 Horses have modelled leading through uncertainty for millions of years. Their environment is constantly changing – what is over that hill, what is in those bushes, where is the next water or grazing source. Their purpose is the safety, harmony and unity of the entire herd and to achieve this, they share leadership.

Just as no one horse can keep an entire herd safe and on purpose, no one leader can do this in an organisation. Leaders need to embrace sharing roles to respond appropriately and with agility to changes in the environment.

From there direction is about focusing your collective efforts on that purpose. Remember, your direction can and will change or adjust along the way.

Where are you headed and are you willing to be agile to achieve your purpose?

Nelson Mandela once said: “Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”

Perseverance is a quality that every good leader possesses. Life is not just about having skills or talent but about following them through.

Perseverance is important in tough times when it can be most tempting to give up. Being a business owner and a horse owner (they go together for me) continually teaches me so much about perseverance.

Here’s a few tips that I’ve learned throughout my career to help you persevere:

• Remaining present in the moment and taking it one step at a time helps you focus on what needs to be done now, rather than feeling overwhelmed. (I really have to thank my horses for this one!)
• Making sure you’re aligned to your sense of purpose will lead to greater satisfaction and more motivation to keep going.
• Talk to someone – as the saying goes, “a problem shared is a problem halved”.
• Prioritise what truly matters. You don’t have to persevere with everything, just decide what’s worth it.

What tools do you use to persevere?

How do we effectively manage conflict in our teams?

While there are many different answers, I like to think first about how everyone has their own unique communication style and how understanding this goes a long way in managing conflict. Afterall, conflict is most often caused by miscommunication.

We have our clients do the MiRo assessment that indicates their leading and supporting modes of communication and behaviour. You’d be astonished how much team conflict can be resolved by being aware of the communication style of others. And working with our horses brings these findings to life, highlighting the dynamics of a team and how it functions.  

Here’s a quick run-down on the leading modes courtesy of my horses. If they were people this my interpretation of them…

🐎 Legs is a real driver. He just wants to get the job done and will happily take the lead. However, he’ll also be led when he feels there’s a strong manager.

🐎 Kylie is the energiser of the group. This beautiful team member wants everyone else to feel good. However, it’s important to remember that she needs to feel valued herself.

🐎 Opal is the organiser. She maintains an excellent overall view of everyone’s roles and makes sure they are all clear on what they need to do and where they need to be.

🐎 Bart is the analyser. He needs to know all the facts to feel comfortable. Don’t try and get anything past this guy – you can’t fool him!

Are you a Legs, Kylie, Opal or Bart?

*Photo credit: Brumbies after the Bushfires, Chris Munro, My Australia DownUnder **Horses rarely fight seriously – only for leadership of the herd or mating purposes.

I’ll never forget a lesson my horses once taught me about composure.

🐎 During the last lockdown period, I was helping to bring all our horses in to the barn as a new storm brewed on the horizon. We had plenty of time, we were not in danger, and I was handling the situation in a calm and efficient manner.

Or so I thought.

I was surprised to find my horses, Legs and Opal, were reacting to me in a way that was different to usual. They were jumpier, less co-operative. It was only at that point that I realised: my anxiety was sky-high. And, despite telling myself that I was composed, the horses could sense otherwise.

What a lesson on how your own composure impacts those around you! If a leader doesn’t maintain composure then it filters through to everyone.

And in the face of all the uncertainty of the last couple of years, it’s a more important skill than ever. 

How good are you at maintaining composure? Can you think of a time where you did/didn’t?