Leadership From Below

"I know up on top you are seeing great sights but down at the bottom we too should have rights"- Dr. Suess.

This past week a silly video and an altercation out in the horse's paddock, caused me to realize that not all leadership has to come from the top. Let's start with the silly video. It began with a guy dancing by himself on a lawn in a public park. After a while another guy joined him and then another and before long there were hundreds of people up dancing. The point of the video was to illustrate the importance of the second dancer in starting a "movement" but what struck me was the role of the first dancer. He inspired everyone to get up and dance and then he completely disappeared into the crowd. For that one brief period of time, in that particular instance he was a leader.

Now let's head out to my paddock. John, who is the number two horse out in my boys' herd came in the other day limping with a giant hoof-print on his back leg. Everyone was quite surprised because John seems to be a very dominant aggressive horse who often sends the rest of the herd scattering in all directions. There is one horse, however who does not back down to John - Snowman, my old grey gelding. Snowman will in fact turn his butt to John and drive him out of the herd across the paddock, kicking at him with his back feet. During these encounters Snowman, who is at all other times a non-entity in the herd, quite definitely demonstrates equine leadership (remember in horse world leadership is achieved by controlling the other horse's movements)

These two stories hold an important lesson for me personally. As owner of two companies and the human herd leader of 22 horses I will admit that I like to be in charge. Like Suzy and Nubee my two herd leaders I am confident of my leadership abilities and I believe in myself as a leader. However, there can be a huge downside to this mindset. When you are so used to being the guy who makes all the decisions, when you start to think that you are always right, you simply forget to listen. You don't acknowledge that there are others who are just as capable of leading as you are in many situations. They may not want to be leader all the time but they can still contribute significantly and positively to your organization. As the leader I have to learn to balance my own vision and enthusiasm with respect and recognition of the ideas, knowledge and capabilities of others. My husband puts it much more bluntly; I need to stop rolling over everyone like a Mack truck.

I admire Suzy and Nubee. They don't micro-manage their herds. There are many levels of leadership in those herds and they both seem content to let everyone else play out their various leadership roles. Maybe I should go and live out in the herd until that concept becomes ingrained in my head.

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