What is Leadership? What is it not? And how might one get from “Ugh that’s hard!” to ” Yeah, bring it on!!”
Leadership has nothing to do with dominance. It is about stepping up and removing choice when that is in the best interest of the other. If you want your dog to see you as a competent teammate who keeps them safe then you’re going to have to learn when to let your dog proceed as they wish and when you’ll need to step up and choose the forward path that your team will take.
When could it possibly be in the best interest of the other to remove choice?
When a bad choice is likely. When a bad choice would be particularly damaging. When a bad choice will lead to more bad choices. When the long-term effects of a bad outcome will erode your dog’s trust in you as a source of safety.
I’m a pretty big fan of choice and I do not suggest that people remove it lightly. On the other hand, learning to recognize when choice is not a good idea, and then intervening quickly, is probably the most critical thing that a leader can do.
If you’d like to develop some critical skills of observation, thinking, and application to become a more effective leader to your dog, I hope you’ll join me in my webinar this week. The title is “Developing a Confident Team: Re-Defining Leadership for Dog Sports and life.”
I’ll talk about what leadership is, specific techniques for how to do it, when you’ll need it, and why developing your skills of leadership now will cause your dog to rely on you under uncertain or stressful conditions in the future.
Read about the webinar here and if you’re ready to enroll, you can do that here.
Tuition is $19.95, includes about an hour of presentation, and provides plenty of time for your questions afterwards. I look forward to meeting many of you on Thursday evening!
