Leadership

This week’s training call was all about Leadership. How to coach a workshop about leadership, and how to be an effective leader. Cool, one of these is great as income for my career, and the other one? Also great for my career, and something I need, in spades! Guess I should learn it before I try to coach someone else, eh?

So, I decided to do some leadership learning with my healing herd, to see what my skill set looks like.

The reviews are mixed.

Wilma, my stalwart, best friend Friesian, with whom I’ve spent a long time building a relationship, definitely has a mind of her own. Mares can be like that: Opinionated. I love that she has ideas, so we’ve done a fair bit of negotiating over the years. Last night, though, I thought I’d see what she’d do if I interacted with her from my third chakra, that of will and determination. What would she do if I asked her to just trust me this once?

I took her for a walk. And aside from a couple of early attempts to stuff her mouth with tasty grass, she just followed along. Walked when I walked, stopped when I stopped, turned around when I said it was time. Wow. Is this the same horse who can’t go 20 feet without asking to nibble on the scenery?

After Wilma was groomed, treated, and released, I turned my attention to Zimi, who has only been in the herd since October, and spent the first 9 years of her life running essentially wild with a band of broodmares who were only handled when being bred, getting shots, or giving birth. Wild band of broodmares. It sounds like they rode motorcycles and terrorized the neighborhood. Not so, and Zimi, despite minimal handling, is very sweet and starting to believe that the sight of a halter and lead rope could be a very good thing.

Except yesterday. She was halfway across the pasture and when she saw me standing at the gate, halter in hand, she starting looking for an escape. As an experiment, I started walking toward her, not really looking at her, just walking.

She’s very pretty when she runs.

Obviously this mare isn’t ready to trust me, even though nothing bad has ever happened when I’ve put the halter on her. She usually gets groomed (which she loves) and schmoozed on, and then let go. Sometimes we’ll do a task or two, like leading for a minute, or a little back up. I just don’t do it very often, or very consistently. Lots of horses, minimal time, and Zimi has kind of been at the bottom of the list. It shows.

If I want her to follow, I have to exhibit good leadership. I have to be consistent. I have to be there. I have to take an interest in her, and listen closely to what she’s telling me. That all takes time.

The horse with which I’ve spent the most time knows she can depend on me as her leader. For the other, the jury is still out, and it will take consistency, love and commitment to reach that level of trust with her. I need to be patient, with her, and mostly with myself and the process, because it doesn’t happen over night. And this learning translates directly to my business and my clients. Good stuff!