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No room to move forward

In a paddock near Leamington Spa, I’m leading a horse on a rope. We’re making steady progress round the edge until the horse stops to nibble some grass just on the other side of the fence, and I find myself between horse and fence, with no room to move forward. What to do? I have zero familiarity with horses, and – in that moment – zero inspiration.

Being in relationship and being curious

I’m here with a group of colleagues, learning about experiential leadership with executive coach and developer of leaders and teams, Jude Jennison, and her herd of horses. I’ve already learnt from her that with a horse it’s critical to be in relationship (and useful to be able to identify how that manifests in your body), to be curious, to be present, to respect the horse’s freedom to choose and to offer clear direction. What won’t work is to be concerned about your competence or performance, because the horse will instantly pick up on your insecurity and will feel unsafe. And it’s hard to be in relationship when lack of safety is there. Quite a lot like humans, really, except that with a horse there’s no judgment.

Emotional connection and trust

Back to the paddock. The horse continues to munch contentedly – and I’m wondering how to extricate myself from a less than productive situation. Remembering Jude’s advice, I regain a sense of emotional connection with the horse, thinking of him as a partner, rather than a being that I need to ‘make’ do something. Miraculously (or so it seems) the horse finishes with the grass and we continue our walk at a steady pace. I feel calm and safe – no sense of control, no sense of anticipation, but a definite sense of being ‘with’ my companion. I feel ’myself’ – nothing to anticipate or fear in the next minutes, but a striking sense of trust in both the horse and myself.

Space and freedom

I arrive back at where Jude and my colleagues are waiting, reflective about times when I’ve found myself in a corner in a leadership context, not knowing how to move forward. Jude’s insight about the importance of allowing the horse space and freedom so that together we can fulfil the task feels like an important illumination. I remain almost overawed by the link between the horse picking up on my state and our mutual accomplishment of our mission – and by the parallels for the leadership of teams.

Teamwork

Later in the day the manifestation of teamwork becomes even more striking. Teams of five of us – a horse and four humans – are invited to walk under, over or through simple obstacles – stepping over a horizontal pole, between barrels or under bunting. One of us is the leader, creating and maintaining the path ahead: if they look backwards they risk meddling. Two of us are either side of the horse, and one is at the back. The leader can’t see those behind, those either side of the horse can’t see each other because the horse is obscuring the view. In organisational terms these are those who execute and those who coach. The team member at the back can see everything that’s going on from multiple perspectives. This position at the back is equivalent to the operational functions in a team, ensuring team members follow the vision.

Moving in sync

Time to set off. The horse refuses to move, even though each of the rest of us has started, although each at our own pace and timing. One or other of us encourages the horse to move forward, either verbally or by taking a few steps forward. Still the horse doesn’t move. Jude gives us a hint: explore what happens when the four of us move in sync. It’s a revelation: the leader calls out the pace – ‘one, two, three, go!’, we all start walking at the same time – and the horse does too. The same goes for stopping: unless we’re all in sync, we just carry on walking in a ragged and uncoordinated group.

Team roles and communication

As we repeat circuits of the course, taking turns at different positions in the team, we learn that the whole team needs to be in sync, the person at the back has a broad view of what’s going on and is crucial in helping to course-correct through effective communication, the two people in the middle need to help guide the leader to keep going in the right direction and at an appropriate speed, and the leader needs keep focused on where the whole team is going and to be not too far in front or to crowd the horse by being too close in. Communication up and down the line is essential if the team is to stay cohesive.

Horse as partner

And the horse needs confidence in the clarity, intention, direction, energy and trust of both the leader and the whole team. I’d never dreamed that an enormous, dignified, powerful four-legged creature could have been such an extraordinary partner and teacher. It was both a moving and a transformational experience, rich in learning and providing much nourishment for reflection.

^{Photo by:}^{Pieter van Noorden}

The horse, leadership and me

I’m with a group of colleagues, learning about experiential leadership with executive coach and developer of leaders and teams, Jude Jennison, and her herd of horses. With a horse it’s critical to be in relationship (and useful to be able to identify how that manifests in your body), to be curious, to be present, to respect the horse’s freedom to choose and to offer clear direction. What won’t work is to be concerned about your competence or performance, because the horse will instantly pick up on your insecurity and will feel unsafe. And it’s hard to be in relationship when lack of safety is there. Jude’s insight about the importance of allowing the horse space and freedom so that together we can fulfil the task feels like an important illumination. We learn that the whole team needs to be in sync. Communication up and down the line is essential if the team is to stay cohesive. And the horse needs confidence in the clarity, intention, direction, energy and trust of both the leader and the whole team.

What’s love got to do with it?

Client A is close to burnout. He constantly over-stretches himself to meet other people’s requests for help and for task fulfilment. As a child, he felt neither loved nor lovable: the only way he ever felt approved of or accepted was through his intellectual ability and achievements. Client B alienates others with her ‘honest’ but brutal and judgmental behaviour, has very high and unforgiving expectations of herself and of others, and is never satisfied with her own performance. These behaviours are getting seriously in the way of their leadership, and they both want to understand how to manage themselves differently. Besides the negative impact on their wellbeing, each is also damaging their career prospects. The coaching enquiry means they each experience a freedom in an awareness that gives them choices that they hadn’t offered themselves before. They learn, each in their own way, that there is strength and safety and a new-found sense of wellbeing in learning self-love, learning how to listen to their own needs, and self-acceptance. Love has everything to do with it.

Endings and leavings

The primary emotions that arise from losing a sense of belonging need to be attended to, just as much as organisations need to acknowledge the contributions made by those who have left. Endings (and the associated feelings) that aren’t resolved or aren’t fully integrated into a system somehow ‘hang about’ and leave their impact to be felt, sometimes for decades, in the form of burdened roles. A particularly impactful ending is represented by death. There’s value in accepting ‘what is’, and being alert to what may be emerging: experiencing it as a state of being rather than thinking or doing. Loss or ending might actually be, above all, a fertile space – the Gestalt notion of the Fertile Void. Good endings allow for good beginnings.

Are you being heard?

Voice matters because it is a channel for the self-expression that people need in order to feel acknowledged and seen, and – more broadly – because it can have a significant impact for a team or organisation when judgment, uncertainty, ideas and innovation, collaboration, communication and coordination are in the mix. An absence of voice may mean compliance or obedience, but it isn’t territory for sustainable engagement - and sustainable engagement is essential for the flexibility and adaptability that characterises resilient, robust, flourishing teams and organisations. What enables voice is psychological safety: believing that you won’t be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes. That belief means the leader, in the first instance, consistently modelling behaviours that authentically welcome inclusiveness and diversity (including diversity of thought), that mean that help is offered and requested freely, that engage without judgment in taking risks and failing, and that make open conversations the norm – all this without fear of judgment, penalty or exclusion.

The illusion of solutions

Family therapist Barry Mason characterises solutions as ‘only dilemmas that are less of a dilemma than the dilemma one had’. There’s no such thing as right or wrong in the coaching encounter: no predetermined answers, no pre-set course, but rather flow and emergence, and the noticing of these. And here’s where certainty and uncertainty arise, mirroring the working environment - and particularly the leader’s environment. Thinking in terms of certainty may mean that the leader doesn’t see all the tripwires, since not everything is either certain or predictable. In my experience of coaching leaders, the capacity to allow, and allow for, uncertainty – frustrating as that may be – also allows for versatility, responsiveness to the situation as it is, rather than as one wants it or assumes it to be, and creativity. Which in turn allows for a more agile response.

Coaching through COVID and Beyond

Are you an NHS/care sector worker struggling to manage stress, get your mojo back or work out next steps? If so, we can help! Coaching through Covid and Beyond offers FREE confidential independent support to key workers who wouldn't normally have access to high-quality coaching. Maybe you just want a one-off chat, or you'd like to sign up to a programme of up to six sessions - whatever works best for you. You can get in touch via our website www.coachingthroughcovid.org or email us at info@coachingthroughcovid.org and we can take it from there.

Award for Coaching through COVID and Beyond

Pro bono coaching programme Coaching through COVID and Beyond (of which I'm a co-founder and a member of the core team) has won the Coaching at Work magazine award of External Coaching Champion (Organisation). The depth of our psychological safety in the core team has meant that we’ve been able to have difficult conversations in a spirit of openness and honesty, we’ve been ready to take risks in a context of uncertainty, we’ve been agile and responsive and happy to experiment in a spirit of ‘test and learn’, and we’ve welcomed diversity of all kinds. Living diversity means that we’ve constantly called on our collective intelligence - and so we've been able to achieve innovative success in several important ways.

Trauma

Trauma is a living expression of a life-changing experience that often can’t be expressed in words but is a fundamental – and literally visceral – part of an individual’s identity. The range of manifestations is endless, including addictions, anxieties, physical pain, illness, problems with sleep, problems with relationships, and repeating patterns of behaviour which are counter-productive but which the individual doesn’t seem able to change. Despite appearances, the most apparently well-balanced, cheerful and obliging colleague may be hiding pain and distress which can get triggered and thus result in unexpectedly negative behaviour. The need for compassion and self-compassion, patience and acceptance, curiosity and tolerance is significant. What do you notice at work – about yourself and others?

Belonging, identity and confidence in uncertainty

You might recognise a situation where an organisation’s strategy is unclear, poorly-defined, poorly communicated or in constant flux. In this context, the role and place of any individual in the organisation (and especially a new recruit) can be unclear. The criteria by which his or her performance is evaluated are also likely to be unclear or in flux, or even more unsettling, implicitly in flux. As a result his or her confidence, their sense of identity, and sometimes even confidence in their survival, take a knock. None of this is good news for performance or growth or development. Leaders can therefore begin to turn things round by being curious about what they could be more aware of, by enquiring into their reports’ experience, and by listening.

Fear and courage

Fear and courage are intertwined when it comes to leadership of self and others. Fear is inevitable and - if unchecked - inhibits and erodes performance, versatility and the creativity that can be crucial to address the challenge, complexity and uncertainty that are constants in the life of leaders. Courage isn’t inevitable, but it’s an invaluable resource when fear is present. Learn, experiment again with a small change in courage, keep learning, and keep experimenting.

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