Use Animal Leadership Styles to Inform Your Business Leadership Values
Have you ever studied the social organization of various animals? Herd of elephants, a pride of lions, a troop of monkeys, a pack of hyena or wild dogs, a swarm of bees or a flock of birds? Who is leading the group or assumes to be the leader? The examples of animal leadership can be used to inform how you define leadership within your own business structure.
Steps
- Have a look at the different leadership styles in place for different animal groups. These will tell you quite a lot about leadership strategies and their results for your own leading style.
- Consider the leadership style of a pride of lions first. Usually a dominant/alpha male is the leader of this group. None can challenge the strength of the alpha male. The physical strength and aggression of the alpha male is the determining factor of his dominance. The protection and security enjoyed by other members of the pride at the behest of the alpha lion is what keeps the pride together. But the leadership of the alpha male is always under threat. During breeding season, the dominant male lions from other pride challenge the leadership domain and some time may win also. Once it wins, the new one takes control of the entire pride. To establish its authority, the new 'chief' annihilates all the cubs in pride in order to push the females to heat cycle so that he can have his mating.
- Leadership of the dominant lion in a pride is not stable and inspirational. Mere physical strength is what defines the dominance.
- Similar to this, some leaders in a business behave exactly the same way as the new lion chief of the pride. They terminate the services of most of the existing employees, declaring them to be useless and archaic. When one business is taken over by other, this situation becomes most inevitable.
- Consider the example of the elephant. In the case of an elephant herd, the matured and elderly female is the head. The headship is less challenged, the constant guidance and inspiration is the key determining factor of her dominance in the herd. When the matriarchal head looses its head to old age, the next aged one is unanimously selected as the team head. The survival of the entire herd is depending on the experienced guidance of the aged female. The aged female elephant never acts like a boss but always will have solutions to the problems of the herd.
- It is recommended that the elephant style is how the leadership development should occur within a business. Take the people with the greatest experience and place them at the helm for stability, reassurance, and reflection. A few younger, quick-witted leaders can be sourced for advice but the one stable leader at the top should hold gentle sway.
- Consider the case of bees. Here the queen (leader) remains only for the purpose of procreation. Different bees are entrusted with different responsibilities. There is no conflict in the division of labor. Highly organized and very systematic. When the queen dies, a new queen is developed by rest of the members. In the swarm of bees, only one queen is entertained.
- If the division of labor is well defined, this type of hierarchy may go well for corporate.
- Continue analyzing different animal leadership strategies to find the ingredients that match your business' needs. You could even make a point of adopting certain animal symbols and images as a way to inspire and encourage others in the business to adopt certain leadership beliefs and values. The inspiration, guidance and protection should be the ingredient for leadership development in a business and the desired values should be reflected clearly by 'corporate leaders'. Leading the team from beginning to the end by example is what is needed.
Warnings
- Animal Leadership is a registered TRADEMARK in leadership training. Please cease and desist the use of this TRADEMARK. Please remove the term Animal Leadership from the title of this article.
