Reflections With The Herd - What does it mean to Embody your Leadership?

​The past few months I have been completing a leadership development program with The Tala Leadership Institute. Last week was our completion retreat at Epona Rise Retreat Center, putting into practice the learnings of the past few months, and really leaning into embodying our leadership.

I fully believe that each of us possesses a set of gifts or strengths that make us truly unique in our leadership. I also think that we do not fully embrace the breadth, depth and intensity of our leadership. We humans spend most of our time in our heads, we operate with our awareness from the neck up. Along with that comes a tendency to listen to that inner critic, that voice that tells us that we need to conform to someone else’s perspective. At least, that’s my experience. But that tendency limits the range of personal leadership that is available to us. So what does it mean to embody our leadership? And how do we recognize when we are?

One definition of embody is: to be an expression of, or give a tangible or visible form to (an idea, quality, or feeling). How do we express the strengths and qualities of our personal leadership? How do we incorporate them to such a degree that we visibly live into them fully? I’ll even take that one step further and ask How do you feel in your body when you are standing firmly, authentically in your leadership?

It can be difficult to make visible, or tangible, a feeling or quality.  So how do we know for ourselves when we are embodying our leadership?  This is where our amazing wisdom partners, the horses, really have an impact.

Let me take a step back and review why horses are such masterful teachers for us.  Horses, as prey animals, are biologically designed with heightened sensitivity. They are masters of intuition, emotional intelligence and of reading the space.  In the wild, it’s a matter of survival for them. They also do not have the same ego brain that humans do, so their response to us is without agenda and without manipulation.

The time I spent with the Herd at Epona last week was full of lessons, but I want to share a couple that landed the learning of embodying our leadership.

​One afternoon, we did a move the herd activity.  My partner and I needed to work together combining our leadership strengths and move two horses from one side of the pasture to the other. As most of you know, I have my own mini-herd of horses, and I am no stranger to moving them between paddocks and pastures, lol sometimes more successfully than others. The rules were no halters, no hitting, no bribing. So by embodying our leadership, we shift the energy that we bring to the interaction and the horses respond to that shift.

And yes, that is sometimes much easier said than done.

Horses demand authenticity. Its not the words you say, it’s the alignment between your intentions and the energy you bring.  And some horses require you to dial up the intensity of your energy. You need to truly connect with your energetic center and project your energy.

Ok, back to the pasture.  We had a young gelding, new to the herd, and a mature gelding who I think is about third in the herd leadership hierarchy. We each took a horse and proceeded in our attempt to move them. I had Indra, who is the older mature gelding, and my partner had Merlin. I had Indra’s attention, he was right there with me. But he would only move a step or two. I looked over at my partner, and Merlin was merrily grazing away not paying any attention whatsoever. I have more experience with horses, so I walked over and said you just need to get his attention, and I clucked sharply, got his attention and he moved.

Our coach and facilitator said, well that worked with Merlin, why won’t you go there with Indra?

Good question. With Merlin, I just knew. I knew how to engage my leadership and push enough to have him respond. Now Indra. He is a master teacher in the Herd. He teaches and mentors the young horses in the Herd.  He is a leader in his own right. To match his leadership ability, I would have to bring it. Not aggressively, but confidently. I would have to truly embody the gifts and qualities that define my personal leadership, and I would have to dial up the intensity for him to take me seriously. Not from a place of ego, but from my authentic leadership.

So, I visualized a situation where I felt confident and successful in my leadership. How did I feel? Right down to physically, what did I feel in my body? For me, I felt rooted, anchored into my heels, shoulders back and squared, expansive in my heart space. And when I embraced that feeling, and projected it with confidence, Indra moved.

​OK, it was a bit bumpy, because I was a bit tentative, but that’s the beauty of having horses as our wisdom partners. When you land in your authenticity, the feedback is immediate and obvious.
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So our coach asked why did you each take a horse instead of working together to move one at a time?  Also, a very good question, not one that we considered when we discussed our approach. So next task, work together to move one horse. Now which of the herd would step forward to partner with us on this one?
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Chief. Yes, he is the lead gelding. So off I went with the halter to bring him into the pasture, and he graciously cooperated while I put it on, and then promptly stayed rooted where he was. Lol, talk about being humbled by the Master. So my partner added her support, and it was like Chief said, “Oh they really are serious.” And off he went. No need to actually get to the pasture, the point was made. The two of us stepped into our collaborative leadership and the energy shifted. And Chief responded.

It sounds easy enough when telling the story, but the power of being in the presence of horses, who are naturally in an embodied state, is that it helps us tap into the whole of our being. Not just our thinking brain, but reading the energy and feeling with our body, occupying ourselves so completely that we authentically express our leadership from our very core. That’s Embodiment.

Thank you to Tala for a magical experience with the Herd. Taking the art of embodying our leadership back to daily life will take practice. Humans are not as clean with their feedback as horses. What can we do to connect to the whole of our being? Each of us will be different. How do you feel when you’re grounded, connected? What practices do you have to bring you back to your center? It’s not going to be perfect, and we won’t stay in our centered state 100% of the time, but knowing how we feel to our core, and having practices to reconnect, will support us recovering to our fully embodied selves.

 I’d love to hear your feedback.  Let me know what daily practices you employ to bring you back to your centered embodied self.

If you would like to learn more about the Teachings of Equus, or schedule a session with me and my herd, please contact me at  [email protected]. Wherever this finds you today, have a fabulous one.

​Love Toni and the Firehorse Herd.

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