BEFORE THE HORSE
The feedback problem nobody warns you about
The further you get, the less anyone tells you the truth. Not because people lie. Because they calculate. By the time you are running things, everyone around you has learned which version of the truth is safe to say out loud and which one costs too much. So the feedback keeps arriving, polished and late, and the gap between how you think you come across and how you actually do quietly widens. That gap is rarely a competence problem. It is a presence problem, and seniority is exactly what makes it harder to see.
Which raises an awkward question: where does someone at your level still get an honest reading?
Why the Horse?
A person can be diplomatic. A questionnaire can be gamed. A horse can do neither. It is a large, watchful animal with no stake in the outcome and no idea what you do for a living — and that is exactly the point.
It responds to the person in front of it right now, not to the role, the reputation, or the version you meant to present.
You do not need to ride, and you need no experience with horses. You only need to be willing to see what shows up.
Why work with me
I spent twenty years in senior roles, chair of the board, then CFO across several organisations. Later I trained as an ICF coach. The two are closer than they look: both come down to noticing what a person does, and what it reveals.
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My hearing is not perfect. It faded so gradually that for years I never noticed; when I finally did, I began to look more closely instead of only listening, to catch the signals that are not spoken. Posture, timing, the small movements people make while choosing their words. What the body shows and words leave out tends to be the more honest part anyway.
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The horses taught me the rest. My own reacted not to what I intended but to the state I actually arrived in that day: my mood, whatever I genuinely brought with me. I wanted to know whether they did this only with me or with other people too. The reactions were minimal, easy to miss, yet they shifted with whoever was standing there. Every group carries a different tension, which the horse reads before a word is spoken. Fascinating to watch.
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When the horse reacts, I am not guessing. I can tell you which movement, which approach, which posture set off the reaction, and from that, how you come across to other people. No mysticism, no talk of energy. Just a large animal with excellent instincts and no interest in your title.
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At your level, honest feedback quietly runs out. Colleagues stay polite, reports are guarded, the 360 reflects what people believe they are meant to say. None of this is dishonest, only curated, and you learn to read past it.
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A horse has no agenda and no manners. It reacts to what you are actually doing in the moment, whether you meant to or not, and in doing so points to your presence and your mood right then. You cannot perform your way past it, and you cannot talk it round. I have watched senior people try both. The horse waits.
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If you have already done the assessments, the 360s, the years of coaching and felt them flatten out, the plateau is almost always verbal. Words can be rehearsed, and posture and rhythm to a degree as well. But certain gestures, and the small movements of the face, escape full control. That is exactly where the real signals sit, outside the spoken word.
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The whole proposition is simple. Half a day. One horse that will not flatter you, and someone beside you who knows your world from the inside and tells you what just happened.
How it works
1. First contact. Fifteen minutes, no charge. You talk, I listen, then I tell you whether it is worth your time. Sometimes it is not.
2. Half a day with a horse. One person or a team. No riding, no experience, nothing special beyond shoes you do not mind getting dirty. Everything happens outside.
3. The debrief. What the horse reacted to, what that has to do with how you lead, and what you might do about it. This is the part that stays.
Who it's for
For leaders - You suspect there is a gap between how you think you come across and how you actually do. There usually is. One person, one horse, half a day, and an honest read on what you radiate before you have said a word.
For teams and organisations - HR, L&D, boards, professional associations. You want your people to see what a 360 will not say politely: how trust, roles and connection actually behave when nobody is performing. Half a day, built with you.
It helps to be curious and willing to look. No riding, no horse experience, nothing esoteric, no incense.
Why it works
Ethology
A horse is a prey animal. Its survival depends on reading bodies faster than words: posture, breathing, the tension you don't know you're carrying. You walk in as one more body to read.
Psychology
People filter. We soften, we flatter, we manage the impression. A horse does none of that. It has no stake in your title and no reason to be polite, so what it gives back has not been edited first.
Leadership
Presence moves before language does. People decide whether they trust you, relax, or brace, long before they have parsed a word you said. That reaction is your real leadership signal, and it is mostly invisible to you.
Coaching
A reaction in a field only matters if it travels back to the office. The work is in the debrief: naming precisely what happened, and turning it into one thing you can carry into the next room.
After a session
"You can't convince a horse you're calm when you're not. You can't strategize your way into connection." - M.C., certified coach
"This wasn't about riding. It was about presence. In a world of overthinking and over-talking, it brought me back to something essential." - T.R., executive coach