Leadership Principles

 

The theory behind Unbroken Leadership is that good leadership and least-resistance horse training share four EPIC traits. 

Empathy

 

Empathy is about coming from a place of understanding of the other individual and having intentions that are focused on helping that individual achieve their greatest potential in a manner that is beneficial to them. This is a key difference between traditional horse training and least-resistance horse training. “Breaking a horse” included techniques that were designed to get a horse to submit to our leadership, often breaking their spirit in the process. Least-resistance training is about asking horses to accept our leadership in a manner that harnesses their spirit, rather than breaking it.

 

Empathy is critical when considering your starting point. When you begin working with a new horse, you must assess what they are bringing to the table; where are there holes in their training, if they've had any at all. What are their strengths and weaknesses, are they prone to fight or flight? Assessing their abilities at the onset can be the difference between a long, healthy partnership and a big hospital bill. When you hire a new employee, your training program should consider what skills and experiences your new hire brings to the table to ensure you set them up for their personal and professional success. Let's face it, bringing on a new employee is expensive; understanding their starting point can be the difference between a long-term, productive employee and a wasted investment. 

 

In least-resistance horse training and in management we should look for opportunities to build spirit to get happy, confident partners or workers. So we will focus on the horse’s responses to help us use appropriate cues that help build spirit. The result will be that when you finally achieve your goal with your horse, they should be bright-eyed, eager, and willing to accomplish the task vs. appearing downtrodden, broken, or irritable. 

Integrity

 

To be an effective horseman, you must own the qualities in yourself that you expect from your horse. If you want a horse that is confident, calm, and focused, you need to show up as confident, calm, and focused. You can’t just act like you are those things because horses are experts at reading body language and will know if you are or aren’t. 

 

The Worldwide Association of Business Coaches identified five significant characteristics that demonstrate integrity. Four of these five relate to how you show up in relation to your organization, but the first characteristic they identified is at the very core of horsemanship: To practice ethical behavior in your interactions and behave honestly.

 

Ethics is the act of always trying to do the next right thing, and behaving honestly goes beyond not stealing or lying, it is really about showing up with confident humility. If you show up with these intentions, horses and humans will react in kind because reliably demonstrating you are what you say you are – integrity – is how you establish trust with horses and humans. Great leaders are trusted leaders who demonstrate integrity and in doing so, achieve the faith and confidence of their workers, colleagues and peers, who then become willing followers, loyal employees and trusted coworkers. 

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Predictability

 

In management and in horsemanship, predictability means there is a discernible pattern to your thought process and behavior. For example, you consistently reward the desired behavior and consistently apply an appropriate consequence for the wrong behavior. It doesn’t mean the reward or consequence is always the same, but the act of rewarding is consistent. 

 

When you are training a horse, your cues can’t remain consistent: if you ask your horse to do something for you, and they don’t do it, you have to elevate your cue. But, you must be predictable in your elevation: if you ask once softly (say at a firmness level of 1) and you get no response, you don’t elevate your cue to a level 5 request. You ask again at a firmness level of 2. Then you ask at a firmness level of 3. You do this for two reasons; first, it allows the horse to respond to the softest possible cue. Two, it says you are a predictable leader. The same holds true with people.

 

As for reward; with horses, the reward is the release; the release from pressure, whether it’s the pressure you apply that keeps the horse moving, or the release of pressure on the bit because they’ve given you the right response. David Rock, in his book Quiet Leadership, which is about what we can learn about leadership from neuroscience, found that carrots –positive motivators – are spirit feeding. Conversely, sticks – negative motivators – break spirit. When you can engage your staff with the same level of integrity, empathy and predictability that is required to work with horses, you will have the opportunity to create a workforce that is willing to follow you, eager to accomplish goals and, in the long run, more productive.