What Animals Can Teach Us About Leadership

By Shannon Wells, Elaine Bailey, Laurent Keller and Prof. Dr. Patrick Kim Cheng Low/Sik-Liong Ang, MBA

Cats: Live in each moment - Cats ALWAYS live in the NOW. They are fully present in the moment. Even when that moment involves napping! They enjoy the NOW and make the most of it, whatever the day presents for them. NOW is where life happens! Not next week or next month, it's always in the moment. Have you ever seen a cat worrying about workloads or their To-Do List?! How much time do you spend fully present in the NOW?

There is another valuable lesson we can learn from our feline friends: Teach others how to treat you - Cats live by the instructions in their own Operating Manuals. If a cat doesn't like something, it simply chooses not to participate and just walks away. Cats are independent decision makers. They decide and then they act. It's easy to live our own life by someone else's interpretation of our Operating Manual. We live by their perceptions of what we should do and how we should act. We become a People Pleaser saying 'Yes' when we really want to say 'No. 'Who's Operating Manual are you working from?

The Horse: In the Western tradition, there is always a wild horse in us and one in which we, as a person or leader needs to tame or put it under control. That wild horse can be our emotions and feelings. The leader should be emotionally stable, and in fact, possess high emotional quotient .It is worthy to note that horses also have a great sense of balance, in part due to their ability to feel their footing and in part due to the highly developed proprioceptive abilities(that is, the unconscious sense of where the body and limbs are at all times) (Thomas,1998). In this aspect, leaders need to be high in self-monitoring, with a good sense of balance and flexibility, mixing with all kinds of people. Having a good sense of balance and a wide area of interests, a leader would not be too rigid, lop-sided and easily stressed. Low self-monitoring, with limited options open, can often act inflexibly or be inflexible(DuBrin, 2007), and people who are flexible and skilled in networking and mixing with different groups of people usually score high on the self-monitoring factor.

Dogs: Avoid biting when a simple growl will do. If what you want is buried, dig deep until you find it. Never pass up an opportunity to go for a joy ride. And, when someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently.

Geese: Now here’s a bunch that knows what synergy truly means. If you’ve ever seen a flock of wild geese flying overhead, you know that they do so in a V formation. Now V may stand for victory, but it also stands for common sense and practicality. The leader of the bunch is the goose at the tip of the V. All the other birds are able to fly easier because of the uplift caused by its wings. And each of the birds that follow fly assisted by the previous bird’s uplift. This way, by pooling their resources and helping the weaker ones, the geese are able to travel 71 percent more than they normally could. Also, when the leader tires, it falls back and another goose takes its place. So for synergy and cooperation, look no further than the geese.

Ants: Colonies operate through organised co-operation and task-sharing. Ants work together to capture prey that is bigger than they are; they can call up extra workers when an abundant food source is discovered; they can defend a colony by repelling invaders. Weaver ants use silk squeezed from ant larvae to “glue” leaves together for nest building. Nursemaid ants look after eggs, larvae and pupae, moving them from place to place each day depending on the temperature. Ants of Switzerland’s Jura region search out antibacterial spruce resin and distribute it within their nests to reduce the number of pathogens.

The secret behind such organised societies is communication and the innate ability to work together. It is these two qualities which are not only the key to the ants success but more specifically to their survival.

Dolphins: Dolphin trainers will attest to the fact that these beautiful beasts of the sea are not like other animals – they don’t respond positively to threats or punishments of any kind. Rather, if you want the dolphin to do your bidding, you must coax, cajole and praise. In our world too, praise and encouragement work much better in getting people to do your bidding willingly. The operative word here is “willingly” because any task done unwillingly is never well done.

Read more about leadership in the animal kingdom