What Benevolent Leadership Looks Like

The Dog Gurus are advocates of benevolent leadership and we often speak at seminars on this topic.  It’s so important that at one point it was the first chapter of our book, Off-Leash Dog Play.  But after a particularly engaging seminar where The Dog Gurus explained the importance of leading the dogs, we asked for a demonstration of what it looks like.  The demonstration looked a bit like the photo.  We were horrified. 

This type of attitude and posture isn’t at all what we meant when we talked about leadership, so let’s take a moment to clarify.  Effective dog leadership means establishing a bond of trust between you and the dogs in your care. You want a dog that seeks your guidance and loves to follow you because the dog trusts you….not because he is afraid of what will happen if he doesn’t follow you!

Two important aspects to the establishment of trust with dogs are your posture and your attitude:

• Posture: Effective leaders walk tall with their shoulders back and head held high.  We have started referring to this as “Walking like royalty” because it’s the self-confidence of a king or queen that you want to portray to the dog (but without the stomping around shown in the first photo).
• Attitude: Effective leaders have a calm confident attitude.  It’s the attitude that causes dogs to check in and see what the leader is doing or saying.  Effective leaders do not yell, scream or intimidate their followers.

With these two minor adjustments in your behavior you will see a huge shift in how the dogs respond to you.  Keep these two ideas in mind as you practice the Leadership Exercises which you received as this month’s bonus material.  You’ll find that those who are struggling with their leadership exercises often need some assistance in adjusting their posture or attitude too.

Try some of these games to help improve your posture and attitude:

• Walk with a book on your head (yes…it works!). You’ll become more aware of the need to keep you shoulders back and your head up because otherwise the book falls on the floor.  You’ll also have to walk slightly slower.  Dogs will notice the difference in posture too.
• Do something fun before going into the room with the dogs.  Sing a favorite song, play with your favorite dog, think about your favorite memory, give thanks for 10 great things in your life.  This will help to foster an attitude of peace and calm.  Dogs key off your energy so having more positive energy will make you a more effective leader.

Be sure to reward success in both the dogs and the people!  As you see improvement in any areas of the Leadership Games, posture and attitude, be sure to celebrate the progress of your staff!