The Language of Leadership

I recently had the opportunity to spend several hours working with professional horse trainer Dee Janelle and it reminded me of the powerful lessons in leadership and communication horses offer us if we take the time to listen and truly connect. Working with horses is a lifelong journey of self-discovery as we strive to understand the equine mind. It is no wonder that many of the greatest leaders throughout history were as gifted in their connection with horses as they were with people. Alexander the Great, George Washington, Joan of Arc, Robert E. Lee, even Ronald Reagan were all distinguished equestrians. The Secret Service actually had to assign experienced horsemen in order to keep up with President Reagan and his horse, El Alamein. But what is the underlying factor in this correlation?

The study of nature reveals remarkable patterns of structure, balance, and function. Nothing exists in nature for long if it doesn’t serve a purpose. When we examine our natural world we witness systems that have evolved to provide a competitive advantage for survival. Darwin astutely revealed that it wasn’t the strongest or the fastest species that thrive, it was the ones most capable of adapting to their environment. Faced with the many challenges of today, business leaders can learn much from the natural world, and horses afford humans a gateway into that world.

Horses have evolved to live within highly functional teams. Comprised of a group of individual sentient beings, the herd offers us a wonderful model of effective leadership and conscious communication. The teamwork of the herd is key to their survival in the wild. Even with a lack of speech, horses are master communicators, maintaining constant connection with one another. Like humans, each horse is an autonomous individual with very different emotional and cognitive attributes. Also like humans, horses require a certain degree of personal space, and maintain healthy boundaries without compromising their interconnectivity. Each herd has a lead stallion as well as a dominant mare, and the greater herd looks to them for their strength, wisdom, and stewardship for survival.

It turns out that horses, just like people, desire congruent, authentic leadership. Without it, the herd cannot survive. This is not ego-derived leadership, as horses don’t have what we would call an ego. It is leadership driven by the survival of the herd; leadership that is, by the horses very nature, incapable of obfuscation or incongruence. When working with a horse, it is the human’s responsibility to provide this highly conscious level of leadership. Not only for the horse’s peace of mind, but for our own safety as well. Interestingly, horses can immediately disce
between incongruent leadership and authentic leadership and will refuse to acknowledge the former and gladly join up with the latter.

The first step in establishing leadership with a horse is to engage in a conversation. This isn’t one-way communication. It requires the human to understanding the non-verbal language of the horse. I mentioned earlier that horses are sentient beings. They have a highly astute sensitivity to their environment. Human beings have similar capabilities, but our dependence on language has lowered our awareness of this ability. To understand how horses communicate (and in fact, how we humans often communicate unknowingly), let’s explore a little background on non-verbal connection and communication.

Recent advances in neurophysiology have revealed the neural networks we human beings have in parts of our bodies other than the brain. Our hearts have more than five million neurons, capable of the same informational and electromagnetic function as the neurons in our brain. One difference, however, is the electromagnetic field of the heart is five thousand times stronger than the electromagnetic field of our brain. This network acts almost like radar, actively scanning for signals in our environment. Our gastrointestinal system is also populated with neurons. More neurons than exist in our entire spinal column. The old sayings, “his heart wasn’t in it” or “she had a gut feeling” actually have a basis in scientific fact. These “embodied” neural networks are connected to our brain via the vagus nerve (vagus is latin for wandering, as this neural pathway wanders throughout our bodies).

Our attachment to language actually creates a barrier in our ability to recognize and “listen” to our embodied “minds”. These neural networks connect to our brain at the basal ganglia. This ancient part of our brain evolved prior to our cerebral centers that enable speech, and there is no direct pathway between this base section of our brain and our higher functioning, language processing regions. Therefore, the information that comes into our consciousness through these neural networks is non-verbal. It comes to us in the form of emotions, in the form of sensations and feelings. What many people refer to as intuition.

Additional research has also proven the existence of “mirror neurons” in our brains as well. These are neural cells that are capable of sensing the emotional charge of other beings around us. We actually pick up on other peoples’ emotions and states of being and react biochemically to these stimuli.

As fellow mammals, horses are wired in a similar way. The combination of their size (think of how much larger their hearts and guts are to ours) and their lack of dependency on speech, makes them more non-verbally sensitive and aware of the impulses and stimuli in their environment through these embodied, sensory networks. As prey animals, they live on the edge of fear response, highly tuned to the fight/flight/freeze response. In order for humans to engage in a conversation with a horse we must heighten our own non-verbal sensitivity; to pick up on the subtle cues that speak so loudly in the equine world but are often overlooked in our own.

The fact is, more than ninety percent of human communication is non-verbal as well. Connecting, communicating, and leading a horse requires us to heighten our own self-awareness; to reconnect with our embodied sensing and cognitive abilities. To stop talking and start listening with our entire being, our entire presence. It demands congruency of intention as well. Fast talking, incongruent leaders may be able to fool people (for a time), but they’ll never fool a horse. Through experiencing relationship with a horse, leaders improve their ability to communicate, to converse authentically with the full spectrum of their being, to recognize the importance of leading from the heart as well as the head.

Is it any wonder why Ronald Reagan was nicknamed, “The Great Communicator”?

© Terry Murray, 2010.