Personal and Professional Depth

“Radical self-inquiry is the process by which the masks we wear are slowly, skillfully, and compassionately removed so that there’s no place left to hide—even from ourselves.” – Jerry Colonna

Ever wonder how a supervisor and a herd of horses can make you a better coach? We talk a bit about that in today’s Extras episode where I’m joined by my colleague Liz Stewart, Reboot Coach Supervisor, and Kelly Wendorf, Founder of EQUUS. Working with a supervisor serves a coach’s maturity and mastery. Being with a herd of horses offers us much clear feedback and wisdom about who we are and how we relate to others and environments. 

“Supervision offers an opportunity to deepen in awareness and leverage the power of connection to cultivate personal and professional depth,” Cassandra Field, Reboot Supervisor, reminds us. “In doing so, we become better humans and better leaders.” 

She adds: “Coach Supervision is a place to get support and perspective, a place to reflect, renew, learn skills, and bring greater clarity to oneself and work. The bottom line is that we heal and grow in relationship.”

Like good supervision, yet in a full-bodied, experiential way, horses teach us about ourselves, our relationships, and our way of being. Horses show us how we are perceived. They also show us, clearly, the impact our way of being has on others in the group. And, they can help us locate our trust in ourselves in challenges and uncertainty. In a world that makes us doubt ourselves, and a world growing in complexity, this is a potent gift. 

These aren’t things you learn in a coach training certification, yet this awareness builds skill that deepens your practice and maturity as a coach. It’s a boon to have someone like a coach supervisor walk beside you in a professional context and help you develop those skills in your client work. It’s also a boon to receive feedback and insights on what holds you back and what capacity you have within you.

By giving us greater awareness of ourselves and the field we create, horses teach elusive yet essential personal growth and organizational change concepts in ways that are experienced, felt, and help reshape our neural landscape to support new possibilities. Grounded in evidence-based research into the neurobiological approach to learning, working with horses engages the limbic pathway where the rewiring of emotional and psychological habits happens. (When we say this modality is life-altering, we don’t say that lightly.) 

In the arena with horses, mammal to mammal, there are no checklists to learn and recite, yet the experience and wisdom that’s lifted up anchors somatically. Here, what matters is the trust in ourselves and how that is the basis of relationship (and leadership).

“My session with the herd was much more impactful than any other group experience I have ever done, and I’ve been involved in studying group dynamics for 25 years,” notes Reboot Supervisor, Liz Stewart. 

To be a more effective coach is to know yourself and what you bring to situations, as well as how to be in service to what is larger than you and what is unsaid and emergent in any space, be it 1-1 or in facilitation. In your work, you are holding the space for transformation for the client or group you are facilitating. This requires you to be attuned to you, your verbal and non-verbal communications, your relationships, your environment, and what’s emerging in the space between. Which, at its core, requires you to continue the work of knowing yourself and how you show up in the world. Horses have these lessons for us in spades.