Leadership interaction skill development through equine experiences

Abstract

The skills required at work are changing due to automation, digitization and a change in the personal attitudes towards working. More often, work requires intellectual abilities and complex problem-solving skills. For leaders, these changes mean that having strong social skills is becoming more important. However, the fact that many leaders rise from a strong technical background may result in limited knowledge on the importance of social and interaction skills when leading others.

In 2015 there was discussion on equestrian females becoming better leaders than on average and since then the author started to notice other articles connecting horses and leadership skills. When investigating leadership interaction and finding a solution on how to support leaders in their social skill development these articles gave the initial idea of using equines in leadership training.

This master’s thesis investigates leadership interaction and how equines can be used in leadership training. The main goal of this study is to investigate and test the validity of using horses in a constructed equine leadership interaction pilot training designed and held by the author in Finland, in September 2018.

The theoretical framework is based on leadership, interaction and equines in human use. These include themes on communication, emotional intelligence and experiential learning.

This development project was conducted using the constructive research approach using qualitative data collection methods. The intention was to build towards recommendations for change and by using a pilot group to bring together theory and practice, action and reflection.