This course is designed as a journey where participants will go through different phases; beginning with a basic understanding of the horse, then moving on to trust and building relationships. Self exploration and discovery is stimulated and encouraged throughout the journey.
Philosophy
Being able to take care of a horse has been essential for leaders for thousands of years; for kings, wisemen, and generals alike. In fact, the modern word “manage” is derived from “manege”, the French word for horse-riding school. In this course, we take a very old form of leadership development and reinterpret it to suit today’s leaders. Our facilitators reflect on the relationship between participants and horses to apply the latest principles, techniques and practices in leadership. Participants apply what they learnt in subsequent interactions with the horses to see immediate results, while also understanding how this applies within a business environment.
Drawing upon the practices of Equine Assisted Learning, Leading with Horses provides an experiential learning journey that highlights the intricacies and dynamics of relationships on a whole, but particularly the leader-follower relationship. This course capitalizes on the horse’s instant reaction to participants’ communication, whether verbal or non-verbal.
By mirroring a horse’s communication strategies we can become the “better horse”. By accepting a human as his leader, a horse can relax. If he can trust us to protect him, he doesn’t have to be scanning the environment for potential predators. So as with any successful leader-follower relationship, there is a win-win.