It's a Matter of Trust - Issue 9, August 2007

Like many of the members of The Natural Leader team, Rhys, came from the horse pens north of us. Selecting a horse from that environment requires a bit of knowledge, a little luck and comes with a degree of risk. Aside from observing the horses' behaviour in the herd and through the process of sorting you don't really know what will show up.

The colt I'm getting to know is a 3 year old faded red dun, or a colour reminiscent of peanut butter. What I am confident about is that he has a soft eye and a curious demenour. Using his curiousity, it will be my job to convince him his new home is the best place to be, call it workplace incentive.

Born with the instinct to survive, horses are designed to flee threat within 48 hours of birth. This ability comes with a heightened sense of awareness and for the moment, from Rhys's perspective, I appear to be a threat - I need to convince him otherwise and the only way I can do that is through my actions.

If trust is the foundation of leadership then everything I do must reflect my intention to gain Rhys's trust. There is no greater test of your emotional strength and knowledge to determine an outcome than when tense hindquarters swing in front of you.

Rhys isn't the first colt that I have started, but each colt is different and while he is proving to be a clever problem solver his trust level for humans remains low. We could speculate on his past experience and suggest this is an expected outcome given the history, but I know horses live in the moment and I have every opportunity to prove myself.

In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Lencioni suggests that knowing the history doesn't necessarily prove an advantage "as desirable as this may be it is not enough to represent the kind of trust that is characteristic of a great team." He goes further to state "trust requires team members to be vulnerable and be confident that their respective vulnerabilities will not be used against them."

As it stands we both have a high degree of vulnerability, when it comes to potential power Rhys has me hands down. His greatest fear is in being trapped, so I must work with that in mind and demonstrate that he can find comfort in my presence. This is where a round pen is brilliant - the horse has the ability to move without fear of being trapped and the space I hold in the centre can be the calm.

Regardless of the experience I lack in the task I have taken on I have to focus on the job at hand - how I present myself, how I recognize his efforts and reward the results.

Chances are I'll make mistakes he'll let me know, but each effort made provides the opportunity to start again applying whatever I learned through each try. Always recognizing the reward is for him - not me.

Working with a number of horses over the past years has taught me there can be many pieces to a part and starting a sensitive horse like Rhys is showing me how important recognizing effort is. I have a new appreciation in watching him try, I have gained a better awareness for the importance of timing and I recognize the impact of what he learns when he fails.

We have achieved first contact so now begins the process of working toward that partnership where we feel comfortable with our vulnerabilities and confident that they won't be used against us.