On paper, the partners of Unbridled Leadership are Lesley Higgins-Elchuck, Heather Tulloch and Stella Hollett, but in reality the women say they have some more business partners – horses.

Unbridled Leadership is a business that offers professional development to individuals in organizations by using horses to help them learn more about themselves. They do it through a program that combines Equine Assisted Learning with the Insights Discovery Learning solutions. All are being held at Sumac Farms here in Pictou County.

By using the psychometrics testing from the Insights Discovery Learning and combining it with the hands-on learning with horses to help people grow and recognize things about themselves as individuals, as leaders and a team, the women said.

Elchuck was the first to come up with the idea. “All my life I had worked with horses and realized that horses read your energy as a person just like other people do,” she said. “If you think about your boss, you can tell when your boss comes in in the morning without them saying too much what kind of a mood they’re in. Horses are very similar.” As a herd animal they long for leadership and will respond to non-verbal body language when determining who to have confidence in and follow, she said.

Realizing that, she was on Facebook one day and saw that a friend from out west had gone to a horse stable with her work for a development workshop. “I thought, oh my God, we have facilities here, we have fabulous horses and there’s no reason in the world we couldn’t do this, so I started researching it and found out there were people doing similar kind of things in the United States. I didn’t find anybody in Nova Scotia or Eastern Canada.”

While she liked the idea of using the horses, Elchuck thought it would be even better to also include psychometrics testing which reveals to people what kind of personality type they are and what they’re strengths and weaknesses might be. As the idea ruminated in her mind, she thought of her friend Heather Tulloch. She knew Tulloch had been looking for work and with a background in business and a lifelong experience with horses that she’d be a perfect fit.

As they began to develop the idea they began to look for someone with a psychometrics background. Their search led them to Stella Hollett who just so happened to be minutes away from Sumac Farms, where they planned to hold the sessions. After Elchuck and Tulloch introduced her to the idea and the horses, Hollett said she instantly saw what a great fit it would be.

“We could really see the complementary between the work that we do with the Insights Discovery model and working with horses as co-facilitators,” Hollett said. “They really act as a member of our facilitation team when we’re working with clients.” She said it was amazing seeing how the horses responded to a person’s body language and reflected the same information as she has seen the tests reveal for years. That hands-on feedback makes the experience more real to people and helps them learn first-hand about themselves, she said.

From a business perspective, Tulloch said their main target would be first the local region but the possibilities are limitless in regard to who might come. There are two ways people can take part in the Unbridled Leadership program, she said. They can either come as individuals to a workshop hosted by the women or businesses can arrange for a group to come together.

Tulloch said they will tailor the program to meet the needs of a particular group. “If they need the team to gel together we’ll do exercises that help the team get to know each other and learn from each other,” for example, she said.

All three women are Equine Assisted Learning certified now and have already gone through some sessions. Now they’re ready to get the business going full swing. They will be holding an open house next Wednesday at 6 p.m. at Sumac Farms for those interested in learning more.

Original Source: The New Glasgow News

New business uses horses to help people’s self-awareness