What My Horse Taught Me About Leadership
Horse training principles can teach us valuable lessons about successful leadership.
Horses have complex herd dynamics and hierarchies, maybe as complex as human's social dynamics. While in our business world, individuals with no empathy or leadership skills can become managers by mistake, in a herd of wild horses, leadership represents a matter of life or death. If the herd chooses the wrong leader, if the horses choose a leader that is not trustworthy, consistent, and reliable enough, lives might be lost, predators might attack the herd by surprise and members of the herd might eventually die due to bad leadership.
Communication between humans and horses is very complex as humans communicate mainly through words and horses communicate primarily through body language. However, horses are among the few social animals that humans managed to build a long-lasting relationship with. The simple needs of horses (safety, food, water, shelter) and their lack of ability to lie or “play a role” (their prefrontal cortex is too small for them to develop this ability) allows horse trainers to gather simple information and concepts that can be applied to other social species, such as dogs and humans.
In the last decade, horse training methods, herd dynamics, and horse behavior have…
