It is no coincidence that the greatest leaders throughout history have been accomplished horsepersons.

Leadership Through The Way of The Horse Workshop

The goal of this program is to create a powerful shift in perspective creating the foundation for multi-dimensional, inspirational leadership. Our custom workshops integrate measurable company performance objectives with guided, reflective groundwork exercises with horses and follow-up team exploration. The workshops do not involve horseback riding and no previous experience with horses is required.

The workshops incorporate the following Equine Facilitated Experiential Learning activities:

Setting Constructive Boundaries ~ Horses sense our presence beyond our physical space and working with horses enables us to "see" their natural reaction to establishing healthy, constructive boundaries. People are very similar; research shows that 90% of communication between people is non-verbal. Setting and maintaining constructive boundaries is fundamental in establishing inspirational leadership.

Healthy Boundaries Improve Leadership by:

• Learning how to sense what associates are comfortable doing.
• Creating the emotional and intellectual space which ignites creativity and elevates associate engagement with the company's goals.
• Demonstrating a sense of respect for associates eliminating walls of communication that may be rooted in fear or feelings of insecurity.
• Creating a strong sense of authentic self and a self worth within workplace teams.
• Cultivating a powerful, non-verbal sense of respect for individual associates resulting in an elevated sense of trust and commitment to the organization.The purpose for setting a boundary is to take care of yourself.

Understanding Emotions as Information ~ Working with the herd helps leaders acknowledge and interpret their own emotions in the same manner as horses. Guided round pen exercises enable leaders to reflect on what they are feeling as they develop healthy and constructive boundaries (the foundation for healthy, constructive workplace relationships) with the horses.

Horses process emotions in the following manner:

• Feel the emotion.
• Get the message behind the emotion.
• Affect change/respond to the message.
• Return to grazing.

This process can be taught to business leaders. Rather than suppressing emotions, leaders can learn to:

• Acknowledge their emotions and the emotions of associates open and honestly.
• Reflect on the message behind the emotion.
• Ask the emotion the appropriate questions to reveal its meaning.
• Respond in a mindful, proactive manner.
• Return to working.

Understanding Emotions as Information Improves Leadership by:

• Helping organizations avoid and resolve conflicts.
• Creating a sense of empowerment over our emotions (proactive versus reactive…we have a choice).
• Sensing the boundaries we create for ourselves and others…not adopting the emotions of those around us.
• Allowing leaders not to taking things personally by realizing associates' emotions are their own and there is a message behind their behavior.
• Developing Emotional Intelligence:
  • Helping leaders discern between fear and vulnerability.
  • Helping leaders discern between frustration and anger.
  • Helping leaders discern between sadness and grief.

Embodying Our Goals ~ Horses are very open to working in conjunction with human beings. However, to work successfully together, humans must clearly embody their goal, their objective with the horse, in order to communicate it effectively. Longeing exercises teach leaders how to embody and communicate their goals to another being without dominating or forcing compliance.

 

 

Why Horses Are Effective in Leadership Development? Read more here »