Further to my previous piece about the relationship between awareness and presence in leadership, I’m going to examine their impact on leadership effectiveness. In particular, I will look at the effect of awareness and being present in communication, adaptability, emotional intelligence, decision-making and culture, and the relevance of equine assisted activities in leadership development.

1. Improved Communication: Leaders who listen actively and communicate clearly and empathetically, fostering open channels of communication and building trust within their teams. Working alongside horses will highlight immediately any ambiguous and unclear messages from individuals and teams, compelling open and honest communication.

   2. Increased Adaptability: Awareness of the external environment and being present enable leaders to better navigate change, adapt to new challenges, and seize opportunities, making them more resilient and proactive. Horses are masters at navigating uncertainty enabling them to have thrived for millions of years in changing environmental conditions.

   3. Strengthened Emotional Intelligence: The combination of awareness and presence boosts a leader’s emotional intelligence, improving their ability to manage their own emotions and understand and influence the emotions of others positively. Horses are highly sensitive beings and can sense whether our actions and intentions are congruent.

4. Enhanced Decision-Making: Leaders who are both aware and present can make more informed and thoughtful decisions. They are less likely to be swayed by biases or react impulsively, considering a broader range of factors and potential impacts before acting. People think of horses as flight animals, but in fact they discern whether they need to expend the energy to run from a situation. For example, they will distinguish if the smoke in the air is from a BBQ or a bushfire, not simply smell smoke and flee.

    

   5. Positive Organisational Culture: Leaders who practice awareness and presence contribute to creating a culture of mindfulness within their organisation, which can lead to higher levels of employee engagement, satisfaction, and overall well-being. Horse leaders sole motivation is the “health, harmony and unity” (June Gunther, TeachingHorse LLC) of the herd. When we lead horses in equine-based activities, they expect the same from us.

   In summary, the relationship between awareness and being present is foundational to effective leadership. By developing both, leaders can enhance their ability to lead with empathy, clarity, and agility, driving positive outcomes for themselves, their teams, and their organisations. And an effective way to enhance these leadership qualities is through experiential equine assisted learning programs.

In the second instalment of our series on balanced leadership, I will continue to look at confidence in leadership, this time as it relates to confidence in those around you – especially your own team.

I find it fascinating to observe how horses behave in herds. Even at our stables here, we can clearly pick out the roles that our domesticated horses have instinctively carried over from the wild.

In a herd, horses must rely on each other for the overall health, harmony and unity of the entire group. To do this, they are highly attuned to one another and function under an effective system of shared leadership that has ensured their survival for millions of years. There’s much human leaders can learn here, because having confidence in others is crucial for us too.

The challenge of trusting others

Letting go is a big challenge for many; in fact, London Business School professor John Hunt says only 30 percent of managers think they can delegate well. Out of these managers who think they can delegate, only a third of the people they manage agree with them.

Most often, leaders are promoted because they are good at their jobs. And as a result, they progress into more senior roles that have the added responsibility of managing people. More often than not, they have very little experience doing so nor receive focused leadership training. As well as this, it’s reasonably common to find a manager run off their feet, doing the work of multiple people and having no time for those they lead.

Leadership can therefore feel like a burden, especially if you are trying to take on all the responsibility alone. This can negatively affect decision making, lead to decreased motivation and eventually burnout. Fortunately, agile leadership, sharing responsibility, delegating tasks and building confidence in others are skills that can be learned.

We can actually learn a lot from nature. When we humans take examples from nature and adopt them, it’s called ‘biomimicry’. This approach takes systems tested by nature that have worked over millions of years and adapt/adopt them for our benefit.

As mentioned above in relation to horses, animal groups have evolved effective ways of navigating their way through the uncertainty of every single day. It is selfless, collaborative and appropriate for the environment in which they live.

Our domestic horses retain the instincts of their wild cousins, who have survived their uncertain environment for millions of years through a collaborative system of shared leadership. By working alongside horses, we can experience this for ourselves. We can actually feel what it is like to be an accepted part of the group and how it feelsto function in different roles. As a leader, we can play with what is working and what is not. And – most importantly – we can relate this back to our interactions with people in our everyday lives in the office, at home, anywhere.

In our coaching sessions, each client group is split into smaller teams and selects a horse to work alongside. Together, they navigate various challenges that require collective problem solving, as well as highlight different leadership styles and dynamics at play within the team. During a recent leadership development session with the key talent cohort of a large IT company, one particular participant stood out.  He had a domineering leadership style and was trying to impose his view on everyone, rather than working collaboratively. While his human team members seemed to be used to this behaviour and (kind of) accepted it, our horse, Kylie, was not and did not!

Kylie’s reluctance to follow this person really hit home for him and the team. What was really going on here? Kylie’s obvious response gave him and the other team members the permission to speak out. There was no malice or ill-intent, it’s just he was – like many managers – very task-oriented person who simply forgot to check-in with the team. And his louder style and perceived confidence discouraged his peers to speak up and share their ideas.

This was a pivotal moment in leadership skills development for the entire team. And it took a four-legged, 600 kg teammate to make it happen.

How confident are you in others?

If you’re interested in assessing your own confidence in others, try a simple exercise.

Think of a time that you felt run off your feet. Could you have delegated in a more effective way? How would confidence in both yourself and others have helped? Now, try to think of a time that you delegated well and shared the responsibility. Can you compare the two experiences?

From here, you can consider whether this is an area of growth for you or not. Having confidence in others is a vital building block in great leadership.

Developing balanced leadership using Confidence, Consciousness and Compassion, will be covered in my upcoming eBook. If you’re interested in more information or receiving a copy when it’s released, follow me on here for further updates or email info@leadingedgelifeskills.com.au to be added to our mailing list.

It can be difficult and confronting to have honest conversations with others, particularly in the workplace. As a leader, being brave and understanding your communication style is one of the most important and ultimately rewarding exercises you can undertake. Facilitating honest talk in your team is a sure way to make the invisible visible and be an amazing leader.

One of the most important features of a great leader is the ability to pull what is hidden to the surface. This is both in our communication and dealings with others, but also – crucially – in being honest with ourselves. It’s also one of the hardest things to do.

Brené Brown, well-known research professor and social commentator, calls it “bringing to light the stuff that’s in the shadows and in the corners”.

I call it “making the invisible, visible”, and it’s something that I see a lot in working with horses, particularly in our leadership training.

You see, horses are not scared to show how you make them feel – not with words of course, but with their body language. This includes turning their heads, swishing their tails and stomping their feet. In the wild, horses communicate as a means to survive in a herd, and even domesticated horses retain this instinct. For them, there is no purpose in hiding anything.

Not the same with humans, though. Our complicated social contracts mean we tend to push down our feelings, particularly in workplace settings, and not prompt other team members to be forthright with theirs either. A recent study found that people often don’t speak up because of “interpersonal risks” and fear of being shunned. Interestingly, the study also looks at the consequences of a workplace where people don’t speak up, which includes harming our wellbeing and therefore contributing to burn out. People get exhausted when they’re not allowed to be their authentic selves.

That’s why working with horses to develop leadership skills is so helpful. They give honest and open feedback, and when a human team is working with them it’s difficult to stop those sentiments that have been bubbling below the surface from breaking free. Suddenly, people are braver about speaking up. They dare to have honest conversations. Leaders gain the courage to move unspoken problems into the open.

So, how can we challenge ourselves to have honest, visible conversations, encourage others to do the same and in the process be the best leader we can?

A full picture of yourself

We always begin the process of making the invisible visible with the difficult task of looking at ourselves. For us, this starts with a psychometric test, MiRo, which helps people understand their communication style and that of their teammates. There are four main types, and people are usually a combination of a couple. They are:

• Energiser – gregarious, creative, and agreeable
• Organiser – interested in wellbeing, stability and helping others
• Analyser – detail oriented and look to understand things rationally
• Driver – innovative, adventurous, rational and assertive

I won’t lie – the MiRo can be a confronting process. And so it should be, because we do not learn about ourselves while staying in our comfort zone. Real change involves being brave.

An assessment like this will show you a lot about yourself that is not apparent from inside your own head. And I guarantee anyone who goes through this process – whether with us or someone else – will be an amazing leader. You cannot hide from an assessment like that, and if you take the challenge, and face yourself honestly, then I guarantee you will be rewarded with leadership success.

*Please note: the individual taking the MiRo assessment, owns the assessment and results may only be shared with the individual’s consent.

Get help having honest conversations

If you feel there’s issues bubbling below the surface in your team, or an invisible problem that you cannot quite put your finger on, then I’d highly recommend getting some help. Sometimes, this outside influence, like our horses for example, is exactly what’s needed to shine light on these invisible problems so they can be solved.

As well as holding a mirror up to your own leadership, the MiRo will also help enable more open conversations with your team. It will help you to:

1. Understand how you communicate

For example, if you’re a driver you tend towards a more assertive communication style. If one of your team is an organiser, they probably like to maintain stability and harmony, so they may be hesitant to raise issues with you.

2. Understand how others communicate, so you can be more comfortable in speaking the truth to them.

For example, an analyser likes to have all the facts, so it it’s worth being prepared for that before embarking on a serious conversation with them.

3. Understand that some of the issues in your team stem from them, not something you did.

An energiser might have lots of great ideas, but own agreement nature could be holding them back from speaking up. In this case, it’s not exactly your leadership that’s causing things to remain invisible, but an amazing leader will find ways to help them.

If you’re interested in learning more about MiRo, please get in touch with me. Comment below or email info@leadingedgelifeskills.com.au. I’d love to have a chat.