The Importance of Rapport: Knowing Who You’re With & Being With Them

This is Part 2 of a series of articles that explore how the way of the horse can serve as a model for leadership and how to be successful together, what horses teach us about executive presence, and how to lead authentically.

Rapport: The Foundation of Being Truly Seen

Horses do not care so much about what they do with us. They care that when they are with us, they are understood. Rapport builds this trust. It makes them feel understood. It ensures they are with us, and that we are with them.

Carl Jung notes that “nothing worse could happen to one than to be completely understood.” Can you remember a time when you felt completely misunderstood? Maybe it was in a conversation that felt like a non-versation? Maybe it’s been something you’ve felt your whole life, as though no one really sat with you to understand where you are? Whatever it is, feel into it for a moment or two. How does it feel? For me, I feel glossed over and unseen, a bit trampled, disconnected (and occasionally bereft and helpless). I often see horses experience the same thing when interacting with unaware humans, and I’ve witnessed the alternative.

Perhaps the most crucial part of being seen is a very pure moment that matters deeper in our neurology than meeting our prefrontal cortex-self with a superficial “Hey, hi, how ya’ doin’?” I’d argue that the 93% of ourselves that processes information via body language (not the 7% that processes words) would be relieved. I offer this as what I feel to be true for myself and my deepest sense of my nervous system. And, I offer this because I know this is what matters most for the horse and their neural framework, of which we bear striking similarities in our nervous systems and body-knowing as humans.

My NLP Marin Mentor, Carl Buchheit, will recite a line inspired from constellation work, which is a line that is one of the most soothing to the human soul, which is simply “I am so glad you’re here.” In its long form, it’s a lovely nod of recognition and acknowledgement: “I am here. I acknowledge you are there. I am so glad you are.” For me, this is the most fundamental greeting of one’s beingness as a pulsing body in relation to another pulsing body. Our creature bodies need this level of recognition in order to feel safe and then to move towards connection in that safe space.

For a horse to connect into willing work with a human leader in the arena, the human must display basic rapport (among other things) in order for the horse to respect and trust being with that person and, later, possibly doing things together. What’s more, is that rapport is how they feel seen and then feel safe to show up in the presence of their human leader. The human leader’s job is to be worthy of that by being present with it. That is, perhaps, the great responsibility that comes with leadership. This is also at the root of a power-with dynamic, versus a power-over dynamic.

My friend Akshay Kapur reminded me that author Francis Weller wrote that “vulnerable” comes from vulnus, or wound. In turn, to be vulnerable is to be wound-able, or able to be wounded. Sit with that for a few seconds with your horse body. What do you feel there, in your own body space? Imagine someone you love sitting in front of you feeling their vulnerability in this way. How do you show up for that real place which asks to be met with care by another? To know what it means to have “power with” is to know this moment.

In an email exchange recently, Akshay wrote: “I recently became a father for the 2nd time, and I’ve struggled with newfound “great responsibility.” Thinking of my older daughter sleeping in her room, and my younger daughter sleeping near us in her crib. Both awaiting my wife and I in the morning, in the middle of the night when the bunny can’t be found, when they’re hungry, emotional, or just want to be held. It’s an enormous feeling, this vulnerability that wants us just to be present.”

It is an enormous feeling: this vulnerability that wants us just to be present.

That vulnerability that we can tend to with our presence is the very same vulnerability that life presents (as we reach out into life). The part of our brain that monitors the environment for safety, for our survival is a very alive part of our nervous systems as well. In his book Culture Code, Daniel Coyle notes that while we feel like trust is stable, every single moment our brains are tracking our environment, and running calculations on whether we can trust the people around us and bond with them. So, trust comes down to context he notes, and “what drives it is the sense that you’re vulnerable, that you need others and can’t do it on your own.”

Failure to meet the life in front of us with presence shows up in the physiology we see in the being across from us (or, in unfortunate instances, it shows up in the trauma that lodges forever in the amygdala). For instance, people can create horses that are shut down as a way of coping with being unheard and misunderstood if they do not meet the animals with presence. In a very similar way, that can happen with the humans in our lives, too. When you are present, curious about their world, with no agenda other than to be there with them, the horse reaches back for you. They find safety in what you’ve offered them, by being with them in that way. THAT is a beautiful thing, a mark of willing partnership based on presence, freedom, care. Of course, we find the same possibility true for the neurological wiring on the human met with presence, acceptance, curiosity, empathy.

In being with the horses, it’s about being with them, not doing to them. What happens then in that space, between two hearts, is magic when it comes to working together towards a shared goal. After all, isn’t that what purpose is in our organizations?

Wired for Harmony: How Horses Mirror Each Other — and Us

Horses naturally return to a place of deep peace for rest-repair-digest after any stress they encounter. It’s a place of a deep and prolonged parasympathetic reset that is essential to their success as a species. Since deep peace is commonplace for them and being the prey animals they are, horses value this harmony with each other. In fact, they are wired for it. They seek rapport so much that they will organically match each other’s footfalls in rhythmic harmony.

What’s equally as interesting is mirroring a horse and seeing how they respond to even the human suggestion, which Sharon Wilsie, author of Horse Speak and Horses in Translation, explores in her work with horses using their language. For example, I can stand next to my horse Prince and blink my eyes the way a calm-thinking horse would, and then relax and wiggle my lips the way a calm-happy-relaxed horse would. Give it 10–60 seconds, and he will begin to do the same. Sharing that space, and knowing that we’re communicating on that level of each other’s nervous systems is quite subtle and profound.

A critical factor to rapport must never be overlooked, and that is the stance of: “I am here. I acknowledge you are there. And I am so glad you are.” That stance, in your heart first, helps open the door for a perceived sense of safety for the other because they are acknowledged on a deep and very real level. (I am talking about horses here, but I realize that the same is true for humans.) Holding that stance is a way of being in the world. The most basic parts of our human wiring understand what horses understand: Safety and connection are important.

As Daniel Coyle points out in his book The Culture Code:

“Language is made up of belonging cues. Belonging cues are behaviors that create safe connection in groups. They include, among others, proximity, eye contact, energy, mimicry, turn taking, attention, body language, vocal pitch, consistency of emphasis, and whether everyone talks to everyone else in the group. Like any language, belonging cues can’t be reduced to an isolated moment but rather consists of a steady pulse of interactions within a social relationship. Their function is to answer the ancient, ever-present questions glowing in our brains: Are we safe here? What’s our future with these people? Are there dangers lurking?”

If creating coaching cultures is the new trend for organizational development work, then the way of the horse and the horse’s nervous system itself offers a living model to work with directly. We can learn why it is that in human spaces, establishing rapport with body language, and locating your heart first, creates space for the shy soul by not rushing to fix or advise. It also sets the tone for asking open and honest questions, all of which support safety and connection.

Horses are great partners in teaching this work and way of being, partially due to how horses and humans are wired with mirror neurons, emotional wi-fi, and therefore the innate ability to sense another’s body (and the tension or feelings therein). Kelly Wendorf, founder of EQUUS, notes that “Nature designed this elegant system of limbic resonance in order that creatures could inform one another, and influence one another across space.”

Because this mutual exchange of information is possible across nervous systems, it allows us to experience what it means to co-regulate with others in their surroundings, and also learn how to become aware of where we are and increase our ability to regulate ourselves so that we can set the tone for others to match. Remember: the leader is the calmest one in the room. A lot goes into the strength of that calm. The ability to experience this with a horse gives the human a giant mammalian-bio-feedback mechanism via how the horse responds to their presence, and the tone they are setting by the way they are being in the world, and with others.

When it comes to rewiring the brain-body-complex, horses give us access to a full-bodied somatic experience. We can experience what it means to be differently with others, which impacts our felt sense of who and where we are in space and in relation to self, other, and life as a whole. This is a full-bodied awareness shift that’s embodied and anchored in our experience. We know that neurons that fire together, wire together, which creates new pathways to be exercised (and remembered) on the way forward in this new way of knowing and being in the world.

The co-regulatory giving can flow both ways. We can also offer a similar experience to the horses; in the same way, we can offer the same co-regulatory aspect to our fellow humans.

The Leader Is the Calmest One in the Room

If you’ve ever been near a horse that has made a sudden move out of fear, such as spooking or startling, you may remember feeling a heightened sensation of fear somewhere in your body. Your heart rate may have increased, and you may have been jolted into heightened attention to surroundings, or the 1200-pound flight animal coursing with fear and nervousness. This feeling that you’re having is part of the emotional wi-fi happening between you and the horse. You’re feeling the wave of what he’s feeling. This is one way in which feeling moves from body to body.

A horse will first ask, “Am I safe with you?” Our calm presence increases the horse’s feeling of safety, the same way the leader of the herd is the calmest one of the bunch. If we can be clear and present with ourselves in any situation, we can help others feel safe. Many things go into this presence, and when you have it, much like executive presence, it creates draw (interest) and a sense of connection. The herd as an entity wants to live in this calm state, in harmony or in deep peace, so when one horse or human goes there, they will all find their way. The same rings true for human groups, of course.

If we can do this with a horse, we can bring it into our human leadership roles as well.

Being with a horse and doing things together requires us to shift our perspective and begin to see things from their point of view. For a horse, every move and shift in physiology is significant. We need to get curious as to what is really happening for the other being in front of us and know how best to respond.

Safety is of utmost importance from the horse’s perspective. Even when they appear calm or grazing in a state of deep peace, a horse’s reticular activating system is still looking out for their safety. As part and parcel of their survival package and success as a species, horses are hardwired for self-preservation.

To get a sense of how this works physiologically, writer and horsewoman Chrissi McDonald writes in her post titled Your Horse Isn’t Distracted that this hardwiring means that a horse’s instinctual reaction time is thousands of times faster than a human’s when responding to their environment. She tells us:

“When horses detect something that they think might endanger their lives, the response takes what is called the low road. For example, the sight of a wildly flapping flag goes from the environment through the eyes, to the thalamus in the brain and directly into the amygdala (the center for fight or flight). This process takes milliseconds. As horse people, we know a lot can happen in those milliseconds. To put that in perspective, the average reaction time for a visual stimulus in humans is 0.25 seconds and 0.17 for an auditory stimulus. Horse’s auditory reaction time is 140–160 milliseconds, and their visual reaction time is 180–200 milliseconds.”

A scared horse will run one of four fight or flight patterns in those milliseconds: flight, fight, freeze, and flock. When you couple reaction time with their ground speed and size, you realize that a scared horse is not a safe animal to be around from any angle.

All parts of their neurology have evolved to work in concert to keep them safe and out of harm’s way. The reticular activating system isn’t a switch they can turn off. Their need for survival is constantly running in the background, and any new situation or environment calls for the need for reassurance that they are safe here. As their leader-person, they look to you for that reassurance, not by the words you offer them, but by how you are being. Literally: how are you breathing? How is your heart rate? How can their body find resonance with yours?

From Fear to Curiosity: How Safety Unlocks Connection

Horses, like humans, can overcome fear with curiosity. We can help them arrive at that threshold by signaling that they are safe with us. This allows them to shift from sympathetic response to a more parasympathetic and social nervous system response. This shift sounds like the shift from fear to love in the use of abstract language. In horses, and in ourselves if we’re aware enough, we can feel this shift from fear to love (perhaps from fear to “other possibilities” is a better way to put it) in their very large bodies. They stop running flight or flight pathways and are more open to connection based on a sense that they are safe.

McDonald continues:

“Building an understanding with the horse then becomes a process of encouraging their curiosity instead of fear. Curiosity allows and fosters learning. Any time a horse fears for his life he not learning. Until their question of safety is answered our horse will continue to use every sense he has to figure out whether to stay or leave. Whether to relax or flee. […] If we keep things relatively quiet and provide clear guidance about what we’re looking for, the horse will come back. When we do our best to answer the horse’s primary question, “Am I safe,” it leaves them able to switch over to their natural curiosity and learn more, and more efficiently.”

Coyle would attest that these are the questions that also light up in our social brains when we humans come together to work together in our herds, er, offices. Patty McCord would attest that work happens more efficiently when there’s clarity and a lack of discord or tension around direction and roles and what it is that we’re doing together.

When it comes to horses, getting the horse into this space is just as important as what we coaches do when we get humans into this space of shifting out of old fear-neurology patterns and into something new. This space of something new solidifies the more that pathway is rewarded as being safe from deep within the functioning of the body. Once safety is established, connection can happen, as well as a sense of belonging. From there, we find creativity and innovation as close as the space between us.

Anna Blake, author and horsewoman of White Mare Wisdom, writes that “the neuropathways built when a horse stays in his parasympathetic state, when given time to be curious and think. Then the resulting dopamine reward, strengthening his self-soothing abilities. That might be the scientific description of confidence. It’s better science compared to a fear-based approach that sends the horse into a flight (or sympathetic) response.”

What does this mean for humans learning about leadership with horses? A horse is constantly asking, “Am I safe? Can I trust you?” And the human in the arena with them must learn what it feels like to make a 1200-pound animal feel safe by her very way of being with them. How can the horse trust that you have their back? Then, in your work arenas, how safe do people feel at work? How would they rate their level of trust in their leader/s or the organization? What is that doing to their nervous systems and their productivity?

Get Curious: Your Fear Patterns

A horse’s response to fear will be one of four reactions: flight, fight, freeze and flock. Humans have similar reaction patterns for fear. We all have our go-to ways of handling stress. What do you do when you are scared or feel fear? What do you feel in your body when it comes on? What are your favorite patterns of reacting to it? Do you get aggressive? Do you shut down and go inward? Do you flee the scene? What do you notice?

What happens to those around you when you experience fear (what do you create in your environment and relationships)? How soon can you come back to center? What do you know about what makes you come back to center?

Self-awareness and self-regulation are essential to being the calmest one in the room. The ability to stay in the moment is paramount, and one of the most challenging and rewarding things you can become.