Leadership & Team Building = Ride for the Brand

Team building and leadership are so over-lapping and intertwined that we refer to them in the Western terminology: Ride for the Brand.

Practice what you preach through participating in a real cattle drive, negotiating challenging terrain on horseback!

A key model is taking responsibility for driving cattle over considerable distances in this wild and challenging country. Cattle drives can bring out the best in people in terms of:

• Taking ownership
• Developing leadership
• Fostering team work
• Showing initiative
• Fostering patience

Shell Lodge Event & Adventure Company can arrange for your corporate staff to participate in cattle work that is symbolic of their workday challenges:

1. How to set direction in the morning, deciding where your herd needs to be by evening, and determining what is the most efficient and least dangerous route.

2. While keeping focus on your final destination, deal with the constant glitches and challenges that force you to be flexible, adopt other tactics as needed, and remain open to change.

3. Learning to trust your horse, so you can negotiate difficult trails together, trying to choose the easiest and most efficient journey for the herd … always taking into consideration your own riding skills.

4. Deciding when you and your horse need to climb to higher ground to see if you are still on course with where you want to drive your herd. Deciding when to come down and adjust the trail accordingly. This compares to having to take an aerial view of your operation at times to see “the big picture” and stay on course.

5. Checking your back trail periodically to make sure every member of the herd and your team are still following, and that no calves or cow are left behind.

6. Adjusting the pace and strategy to carry the whole herd and team with you and reach the destination.

Because of the challenging terrain, the altitude, and the variable temperatures and weather -- to make sure that you and your horse make it through the day -- you will have to learn to pace yourself.

Aggressive egos and brutal leadership will exhaust the horses after just a couple of hours. Overly aggressive actions will run the herd astray or leave part of it behind or lost. These kinds of behaviors cause a lot of “make over” time and inefficient expenditures of energy.

What Leadership and Team Building Is All About

Utilize Servant Leadership Style, where you make use of and act more as a catalyst for the energy and resources of the ones you lead, bringing out the best in them.

Much of the team-building activities we offer compare to leading teams of intelligent workers in today’s corporate environment. Where not only the final result counts, but how efficiently one arrives there. Zero rework, efficient leveraging of energy and resources and the intelligence and skill sets of the individuals or team, and bringing out the best in everyone is what real leadership is all about.

In working cattle together, Shell Lodge Event & Adventure Company can facilitate a transformational leadership exercise and corporate team building activity that your group will not file away when they return to the office.