Part one of this series of two was about trust. It originally became a bee-in-my-bonnet over a year ago, when some of the behaviour at work was proving interesting. I struggled to write something that was anything like coherent initially, because of the intensity of the situation.
Time and a different employer gave some distance and perspective, and I began to wonder if trust really was the issue. Certainly there was a trust issue – but was that cause or effect ? Or was there something else … like leadership ?
If you look up leadership, you’ll find it talks about leading – so not much information added there. Mark Rashid talks about the horse “turning over the decision making” to the rider/handler. And it strikes me that this is a pretty good model to use.
For there to be leadership, there needs to be guidance/decisions, and there needs to be someone making them.
The leader is the one who is making the decisions.
The follower is the one who is accepting and acting on those decisions.
To turn over the decision making in a particular situation/context, I would propose you need to trust whoever is going to make those decisions.
My old pony (“Red”) was fast both physically and mentally. He was always one step ahead of me. If I had lacked confidence, that might have been a bad scenario. But he and I just sort of “clicked” and I trusted his abilities. That meant I could leave a big proportion of the detail (how we got over a jump) to him, while I provided the direction (which jump was next, what to expect *after* the jump – water, a drop etc). And our successes built on that trust and confidence. He listened to me, I listened to him. When other people took him out in his later days, that caused problems as he would “ask” whether he should go faster – but the rider wouldn’t realise what was going on and would get taken home at speed ! To me we were the perfect team, and there were only 2 occasions I can think of where “equal” partnership resulted in a problem. The first was in our heyday and in hindsight I think he must have been feeling under the weather. It took a rare stop at a jump before I realised and helped him out more than usual. The second was in his semi-retirement, where his view of his abilities had not adjusted to his age, and I went along with his decision (to take the option of a bigger jump). Once again, it just took that one time for me to realise I had to take a bit more of the decision-making. If you were using the situation leadership model, this was probably a “delegating” style.
It was a big change to start working with Fi who, as I commented last time, needed a very different type of leadership from me. To accept that leadership, she needed to be able to hand over the majority of the decision-making to me. From the “big” stuff like where and when we worked together, to the “little” stuff like speed, direction and destination. She still got to offer me what she could, and as her acceptance and confidence in “us” grew, she could and would offer more. But she needed a lot of directing and we probably started in a Directive and moved into a Coaching style sometimes.
Conversely Rosie challenged *everything*. Actually it is quite a breakthrough for me to write that in the past tense rather than present ! She would challenge speed, destination AND direction – and any change to any of those. One of the trainers I worked with back in those days commented that “most” horses quickly learnt that it took more energy to object that collaborate. And conserving energy is a survival trait. But Rosie…. Nooooo…. She would challenge for prolonged periods of time, and when you went back the next time, she would challenge the same things all over again. I had to be stronger with her than I was really comfortable about – I had to insist, and in a way that meant she realised collaboration was the best option. And *how* you were strong was key – any attempt to just dominate with sheer force just got more challenge and a really peeved pony. I needed to stay calm, insistent, persistent. But still recognise and reward the smallest try. It isn’t easy to be that strong and still listen hard enough to hear that tiny “whisper” of a try. But over time things started to get better. And once again we had that virtuous curve where the better things got, the less I had to insist, the more I could ask and reward. The more she tried, the more I could reward. And the more I asked and rewarded, the happier she was ! I’m still not quite sure where our partnership will end up – collaborative (like Red) or directive (like Fi). Or something else. And I’m not sure how we will end up splitting the decisions between us – but for the interim I have needed to take on more of that just to get her to accept turning *any* decisions over.
But in a work role I am more usually in the Follower role, which means I need to be capable of what I ask of my horses – turning the decisions over to someone else. If stepping up to a stronger kind of leadership was tough, what is it like to be on the other side of the fence ?
I think my natural preference for a collaborative/delegative style is probably not a surprise from how I worked with Red. I suspect I am probably as demanding and challenging of my “leaders” as Fi and Rosie have been of me. Do I challenge ? Yes, although I aim to make it relevant and timely (but of course will not always get that right).
So where can it go wrong ?
Well I found some more quotes ;)
“Trust is earned, respect is given, and loyalty is demonstrated. Betrayal of any one of those is to lose all three.” Ziad K. Abdelnour,
And one from that prolific author “unknown”
“Honesty is the foundation for trust; without one you can’t have the other”
I also understand (although I confess I don’t have the reference) that when you research what people are looking for from their leaders, year after year the aspect of “authenticity” (or “consistency” – basically doing what you say and vice versa) comes up in the top 3.
Hmmm. So as a rider/handler/leader with horses I need to be consistent.
And as a follower at work I look for honesty and consistency from my leaders, in order that I can trust and respect them. Or as a leader, within the hierarchy, I need to offer the same as I ask for.
Of course a leader could be consistently bad as well as consistently good. In one of Mark Rashid's blogs he talks about the horse learning as much from "absence of direction" - all those things we'd really rather they didn't learn but they do.
One last definition to close the loop. A certain Natural Horseman came up with a definition of respect as “an appropriate response to pressure”. That may work for horses, but it also works in the office.
If the leadership is inconsistent, and the trust and respect are lacking, it probably shouldn’t be a surprise if the response to pressure may at times be…. “Inappropriate” ?!
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