Would you believe me if I said that one session spent with horses could teach you more about your leadership style than days in lectures?
Over the last few days, my experience at #OWPSingapore has been a rollercoaster of learning, laughing, and some serious lightbulb moments. I can barely believe we only have one day left. Coming into the program, my checklist was ambitious: get the inside track on AI and cybersecurity, crack the code on leading a top-performing team, and give my leadership style a major upgrade. It’s met these expectations and more, and one experience really stood out.
One of the leadership labs I attended brought us all the way to Turf Club to interact with – you guessed it – horses! The interactive activities with horses were designed for us to look inward and reflect on our leadership styles and how we engage with situations that require us to step into unfamiliar territories. The horses responded to me in such a pure and direct way that I was able to discover the blind spots in how I show up as a team member and as a leader.
Following that, we had an interactive session with a group of actors who shared useful tools, such as vocalization exercises and skits on real-life workplace situations to rediscover how to lead with confidence while remaining authentic to ourselves. Not only was it a great lesson on how to be in the moment, but it was also a reminder on how connecting with others is critical to get the most out of any interaction.
Here are some of my favorite learnings from day 4 of OWP, in the form of quotes. Let me know in the comments which resonated with you!
- “Sequence matters!”
- “If you torture the data long enough, it will confess.”
- “Frequency is more important than intensity.”
- “What was said, what was heard, what was meant?”
- “We are all trying to minimize anxiety.”
- “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
OWP is truly a journey that transforms you from the inside out, making you a better leader, a better communicator, and above all, a better human being. It sounds cheesy, but let’s all reach for the stars!
This article is inspired by a LinkedIn post: you can follow Yong Chuen Kang here.
