My horse, Minnie is sleek and black with eyes that dart left and right watching my every move. She is standing stiff and tense by the round pen wall, waiting for me to begin our workday. Her ears are turned towards me and her eyes are wide, showing the white around the pupils.

She looks like she is ready to bolt for the slightest reason. It's a foggy, rainy day and the air is cool enough so that when Minnie sticks her nose out to blow and snort I can see the frosty air rise and circle from her nostrils and finally dissipate in the wind.

The atmosphere feels heavy with some unseen expectation hanging, waiting. Her tenseness surrounds us like a dark cocoon and I find myself waiting for one of us to snap like a banjo string.

Picking up my whip I point it at Minnie's hip and before I can say a word, she springs up in the air and jumps forward, racing around the arena.

Frustrated I think the word whoa and as I let my breath out to say the word she slides to a stop. I point with the whip again, this time asking her to change directions.

She bolts with her tail in the air galloping around and around the arena. She is still blowing and snorting in the cool morning air and once again I barely think the word whoa and she jumps to a stop. Her whole body jars and bounces with her stop and it appears that she will come up over the top of the round pen wall.

I am feeling more and more agitated. What on earth is wrong with her today? This is getting us nowhere.

Throwing down the whip and grabbing the lead line I lead her out to the pasture mumbling the whole way. I'll just let her work off her excess energy alone, I mutter to myself.

When I let her go Minnie races about fifty feet into the pasture, stops, looks around, and then quietly begins to graze. It seems she has no excess energy now!

Taking a break and watching Minnie in the pasture I begin to realize this is about me today, not her.

Horses mirror-image their handlers.

If she is bouncing off the walls it is because there is something in me that's bouncing off the walls. She's reading me; it's my energy that's causing her to exhibit high, uncontrollable energy. I am the one who needs to take the time out and figure out what's going on inside me before I can get anything accomplished with Minnie.

Isn't this the way it is with your employees or team? The tenseness in the air, the activity that causes your team to argue and not get anything accomplished and certainly not act as a team but more as a group of individuals each having their own agenda. And by the way the agenda is about them and their needs, not the company needs.

Your team picks up their mood from you their leader. As their leader it's up to you to know what your emotions are, what feelings are driving you and how you're exhibiting them to your team.

Otherwise you end up in chaos because your team is responding to your inner workings regardless of what you are attempting to say with your mouth.

Copyright (c) 2008 Jean Starling