Leadership Lessons From Dogs

On the night of May 1, 2011, two United States Blackhawk helicopters took off from a staging base in eastern Afghanistan headed for Abbottabad, Pakistan. According to The New York Times, the raid involved 79 commandos and one dog, Cairo. He had a pivotal job. Cairo was responsible for tracking anyone who attempted to escape the building and alerting the Navy SEALs of any approaching security forces, in addition to looking for hidden rooms or doors inside the compound. He was well trained, intuitive and took great pride in the work he flawlessly performed.

As we all know, the SEALs and Cairo were magnificent that night, capturing and killing Osama Bin Laden. But the Bin Laden raid was not Cairo’s first high-level mission. He had gone on numerous raids and was injured in the line of duty but continued to serve his country by playing whatever role was needed. His Navy SEAL handler, Will Chesney, wrote a book called “No Ordinary Dog” about the great efforts that night by Cairo, a Belgian Malinois breed known for being incredibly smart, eager, obedient and extremely loyal.

The bond between Cairo and Chesney was rooted in the same element as any strong relationship — consistent trust. While it’s easy to believe that dogs are loyal to their owners simply because they provide food and shelter, it’s simply not true. Dogs rely on someone providing food and shelter, but their unconditional love and loyalty come from a consistent relationship with their handler. Studies examining the dog-human relationship have found that over such a long time of living so closely with people, dogs have developed the ability to empathize with human beings, read our body language and our facial expressions and develop their own ways of communicating with us, according to Psychology Today. They feed off our emotions much like those we lead.

If we take a closer look at canines, we might find that we’d be wise to apply many of their attributes.

1. Dogs have terrible short term memories. They move onto the next moment.

2. Dogs have wonderful long-term memories and always show their appreciation.

3. Dogs always have your back, in good times or bad.

4. Dogs understand your emotions and can read your body language

5. Dogs provide great motivation. They make you get off your chair.

6. Dogs learn quickly and are adaptive.

7. Dogs never allow you to eat alone. They understand mealtime is the best time to connect.

8. Dogs try to live every day to the fullest and never get bored.

If all leaders practiced these traits, as Cairo demonstrated during his mission, we could easily improve our leadership skills. We can learn much from our friendly friends.

Please forward and share this email with your friends and family.