Leadership Lessons: Be Careful of Over-Leading

A few years ago, I found myself in Wyoming’s beautiful mountainous terrain. I thought the setting was designed as a pause point—a chance for myself and the group of leaders I was with to reflect on how far we’d come and how much we’d grown. It turned out to be a defining moment on my ongoing leadership journey, and it all started with a horse.

With little instruction, I was asked to take a horse and just ride. I hopped on my new pal Goliath with memories of Churchill Downs and attempted to take command of my steed just as I imagined those jockeys from my childhood dreams did. I tried to lead the horse, strong-arm him in a certain direction, and the results were pretty darn comical to the onlooker and scary and unproductive for me sitting atop Goliath. So, I eased up ready to reset. That’s when the magic happened. Without steering, without needing to take the reins, my horse just started down the trail, navigating it successfully on his own without my extra “help.”

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