Comments on: Leadership by and for rider/elephants

By: kim

kim — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 01:17:24 +0000

Totally agree with mac2000 !

By: mac2000

mac2000 — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:23:44 +0000

The animals are not have steady mind….
The rider will always controls the elephant..
But we can riding in a elephant is such a different experience………
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mac2000
Drug Alcohol Rehab
Drug Alcohol Rehab

By: Alice Vlietstra

Alice Vlietstra — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:09:31 +0000

I like the rider/elephant metaphor. Often one can be
incongruent due to hidden unconscious patterns and beliefs.
Focusing on the positive can help include them in a functional way.

By: Galba Bright of Tune up your EQ

Galba Bright of Tune up your EQ — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 15:16:01 +0000

Hello Dave:

The elephant/rider notion is a powerful metaphor. You ask some thought provoking questions. Most of the leaders who I’ve observed that managed organisational change effectively mixed reason and emotion. The key deficit that I’ve seen is when leaders end up being overly logical. In my own life, I seek to integrate reason and emotion. When I’m able to do so, I enjoy greater peace of mind.

By: Dave Shearon

Dave Shearon — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 22:24:35 +0000

Kathryn, I like you’re point about the elephant going in multiple directions. I think that’s why, “What do you want,” can be such a powerful question — parts of us want different and conflicting things. And values and their prioritization do seem to come into play at those points.

By: Dave Shearon

Dave Shearon — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 22:22:47 +0000

Senia, yep, alignment is part of it. Broaden and build, happiness leads to success, etc. — all part of it. And, once aligned, learning when and how to “trust your gut”, i.e., let the power of unconscious thought analyze and prioritize and relate so you make better decisions. And, try to lead the organization that lets others be balanced, intuitive, thoughtful, reflective, but action-oriented leaders. Other people matter.

By: Kathryn Britton

Kathryn Britton — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 18:22:02 +0000

Dave,
Back in our MAPP days, four of us spent time trying to understand authenticity. Being true to yourself is a bit too generic. It’s a little bit like saying it’s the rider’s job just to understand and follow the elephant. But we all have both positive and negative urges. So the elephant is not going in a single direction. And most of us don’t want to follow it everywhere it might go.

We decided that authenticity meant acting in accordance with your values. Then it becomes the rider’s job to understand values and make the difficult decisions that they sometimes bring up, for example, when two different values conflict. A well-trained elephant has habits that make it follow its values most of the time without conscious thought from the rider. It can also make the rider aware that it is straying from values by giving him a physically bumpy ride.

I guess that’s just an embellishment on the rider/elephant idea, but it certainly made many things come clear in our discussion of authenticity.

By: Mastering the Elephant of Unconsciousness « Breath by Breath

Mastering the Elephant of Unconsciousness « Breath by Breath — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 20:12:24 +0000

[…] The other day on the Positive Psychology Blog, Dave Shearon discussed a metaphor which was new to me. He said: Jon Haidt in The Happiness Hypothesis suggests the metaphor of a rider on an elephant for how we live life. The rider is our conscious thoughts (and emotions). The elephant is our unconscious emotions (and thoughts). […]

By: Center For Leader Development » Blog Archive » A Different Way of Thinking About LD

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 12:33:52 +0000

[…] You have to read and see this one…-Scott J. Allen […]

By: Senia

Senia — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 19:02:03 +0000

Hi Dave,

On your two suggestions:

1) You say leaders should align their riders and elephants. When I was at Stanford Business School in 1999, AOL Time Warner former head Jerry Levine came to speak to a small group of us, and although I was off at a job interview those few days, a friend told me that the most important thing that he said was that as a leader - and he pointed up and down along his core - the most important thing is to stay balanced, to have a strong core.
Dave, that sounds like what you’re saying - to have a strong core of emotion-and-reason-aligned.

2) I once heard a CEO say that one of the pieces of advice she most follows is to not get into situations where her employees “check themselves at the door” - she wants to make sure that they bring their brains as well as their gut and their emotions and their beliefs to work - so that they can remain aligned.

Thanks, Dave,
S.