I write a lot about leadership, but perhaps not so much about my own. I was going to tell you a bit about it today – and it is based on vastly in who I am as a person, how I was as a person, and how I have learned certain things in my life. It is a personal journey, which has been both exciting and difficult in different ways.
Of many very for personal reasons, throughout my life I have seen myself as “submissive”, or possibly one “followers” if you think it fits better. I have always bowed to authority. But then one day maybe fifteen years ago or so, I was elected chairman of a newly started association – and had to find new sides in myself to make it work.
My dad has always been a very authoritarian person in my life. He worked as ombudsman for what was SKTF, but now called Vision. He was my role model when I started to develop new sides of myself, which in the end proved very useful in, among other things, leadership with dogs.
What I learned me from my father is to demand my space, dare to take a seat, dare to demand to be heard. These are not easy lessons for a person who has always been quiet and timid. But it has paid off – A few years ago, one of my best friends said that “when you talk, people listen”, which I take as a great compliment.
What happened for me was that I had to make a shift in how I thought about myself. From seeing myself as small and weak, I had to start seeing myself in a different light. So it had more to do with myself than anything else. It is when you think about yourself in a particular way that it becomes easier to be in control of yourself and your surroundings.
A few years later that I had started this process, I took Ella home, which was then eight weeks. She has been allowed to act as a guinea pig, as bad as it sounds. It has been far from perfect every time, but she has been patient and given me space and opportunity to learn.
And the fact is after all, you have to start somewhere – no one is an expert from the start.
I think my best sides when it comes to leadership regarding dogs is that I am also very calm as a person, but also that, as far as I can, I try to meet dogs where they are. I also have a target image of how I want each situation to look, and it helps me actually make sure it turns out the way I want it to. Combined with my awareness of how I direct my energy, I consider that I have relatively good leadership.
I do not know how it works for others, but for me, who lives with bipolar disorder, being able to reflect myself in a dog is very important. The dog tells me as soon as I am unbalanced, which gives me the opportunity to catch myself earlier than I would have otherwise, and thus give both me and the dog a greater chance of achieving balance (again).
Things I learned me during my years with Ella is that anger and frustration have no place in leadership. It just makes the dog behave worse than when you started. That realization has made my patience greater (it wasn't very big to begin with), which in most ways is gratifying.
Then you must not showing patience and, for example, setting boundaries with each other. By the way, setting boundaries is also something I've gotten much better at (from not being able to set boundaries at all).
In addition to this there are there some other things i learned from my dad, which proved to be useful. Like my father, for example, I am quite principled; if I have decided that something should work in a certain way, I am not willing to change my attitude just because.
Very brief I would probably summarize my leadership as low-key and loving, but still determined and controlled. In my world there is no place for dogs that take any liberties, but I see it as my task to set the shape and boundaries for our togetherness.