Shared Leadership is Harder Than Control
- Mar 16
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 17
Danielle McKinon, Founder of Eat Sleep Ride, a rural-based charity in Scotland, and a certified Equine Leadership Coach. Part of the global TeachingHorse network, Danielle applies the Diamond Model of Shared Leadership to help individuals and teams lead with confidence through uncertainty.
Most leaders say they want collaboration, but what many actually want is agreement. Shared leadership sounds progressive, modern and generous. In practice, however, it is often slower, more uncomfortable and far more demanding than control.
I was reminded of this during a networking day we hosted for 24 businesses. The team had prepared carefully the day before. The structure was clear, the horses had been selected thoughtfully, and the experience had been designed with intention.
On the morning of the event, we brought one of the horses out and she said no. She walked sideways, her body was tight and her head was high. She didn’t settle and she didn’t want to engage.
We could have pushed through. We had a schedule, expectations and an audience. Instead, we returned her to the field and adapted the session.
I remember asking the group a simple question: “Would you force a colleague to work when they are clearly saying no?”
The room went quiet. What we witnessed that morning wasn’t defiance. It was a nervous system under strain. Neuroscientist Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory explains that when a mammal perceives a threat, even a subtle threat, the body shifts out of social engagement mode. Connection becomes secondary to survival. Performance narrows and cooperation drops.
In organisations, we often label this behaviour as disengagement, resistance, or poor attitude. Biologically, it is protection.
When leaders override stress signals in animals or in people, performance may temporarily continue, but trust does not. Shared leadership requires the capacity to read nervous system cues, not just outcomes.
Research on psychological safety, popularised by Amy Edmondson, shows that teams perform best when individuals feel safe to take interpersonal risks. Safety is not softness; it is the biological foundation of collaboration. The horse that refused to work was not breaking the plan. She was protecting herself.
The leadership question, therefore, becomes simple: are we building environments where stress signals are punished or understood?
Embodied leadership meets executive reality
It is easier to talk about shared leadership in a field than in a boardroom. In business development conversations recently, I have been challenged with a phrase that cuts quickly through inspiration: “And what?”
And what does that mean financially?
And what does that mean structurally?
And what does that mean in three years?
Adaptive leadership theory, developed by Ronald Heifetz, distinguishes between technical problems and adaptive challenges. Finance is rarely just technical. Sustainable growth requires behavioural change, not just spreadsheets.
Shared leadership is not only about who speaks in the room. It is about who carries responsibility for sustainability. Control often says, “Keep going.” Shared leadership asks a harder question: at what cost?
For me, that has meant confronting uncomfortable truths about lending, cash flow and long-term stability. Vision without infrastructure is fragile. Purpose without discipline is unsustainable.
Embodied leadership must eventually translate into financial clarity. Otherwise, it remains insight without structure.
Governance, power and structure
Shared leadership without structure is not empowerment, it is ambiguity. Research on distributed leadership shows that sharing authority without clarity creates diffusion of responsibility. Real shared leadership requires defined roles, accountability and feedback loops.
It is not comfortable to admit when a board needs strengthening. It is not comfortable to recognise when trustees are not fully stepping into responsibility. It is not comfortable to be challenged on governance.
But shared leadership without accountability becomes personality-led leadership. And personality-led leadership is fragile.
Embodied leadership, the kind that begins with nervous system awareness, must extend into governance discipline. Otherwise, one person carries both vision and weight. That is not collaboration. That is quite control.
Autonomy, structure and community
The tension becomes visible quickly in community programmes. There have been days where a clear structure was set, only for young people to reshape it in the moment. Volunteers have pushed back. Practical barriers have disrupted carefully planned schedules.
The instinct in those moments is to override. To reassert authority. To tighten control. But Self-determination Theory tells us that autonomy is a core psychological need. When people push back, they are often seeking agency, not chaos.
The leadership task is not to eliminate autonomy. It is to scaffold it responsibly. Shared leadership does not mean the absence of structure. It means shared responsibility within it.
It means asking:
What is flexible?
What is essential?
Where do we adapt?
Where do we hold the line?
Control is cleaner. Shared leadership is messier. But it is in that messiness that ownership develops.
Co-regulation as leadership
Co-regulation is not just a parenting concept. It is a leadership skill. Human nervous systems synchronise. A regulated leader lowers the threat level in a room. A dysregulated leader amplifies it.
Horses make this visible instantly. They respond to incongruence without politeness. Boardrooms are less honest, but the biology is the same.
The horse that refused to engage was not a problem to solve. She was data. Executive leadership requires the same humility.
Shared leadership is harder because it requires emotional regulation, financial transparency, ego restraint, governance clarity and a genuine willingness to be challenged. Control centralises power. Shared leadership distributes it and with it, distributes growth.
If we want sustainable organisations not personality-led ones then leaders must learn to move between embodied awareness and structural accountability. That bridge is where the real work sits. And it is not soft.
Practical reflection
If you want to practise nervous-system-aware leadership:
Notice when you accelerate under pressure.
Ask what threat might be present in the room.
Slow your response by one breath before speaking.
Separate urgency from fear.
Measure safety as carefully as performance.
Control creates speed. Shared leadership creates capacity. And capacity is what outlasts charisma. Through our work at Eat Sleep Ride and the Herd Dynamics leadership programmes, we continue to explore how embodied awareness, shared responsibility, and structured leadership can help organisations build cultures that are both resilient and humane.
To explore Danielle's leadership programmes, visit Herd Dynamics | Equine Leadership and Personal Development these programs that support Eat Sleep Ride.
Read more from Danielle McKinnon
Danielle McKinnon, Equine Leadership Facilitator/ Social Entrepreneur
Danielle McKinnon is the founder of Eat Sleep Ride | Rural-Based Charity in Scotland, a rural charity using horses, nature, and coaching to support disadvantaged and neurodiverse young people. She is a qualified equine-facilitated learning practitioner, coach, and licensed facilitator of shared leadership, working locally and globally to build brave spaces for change. Her work is rooted in lived experience, community care, and the wisdom of the herd.
To explore Danielle's leadership programmes, visit the Leadership at Eat Sleep Ride page at Herd Dynamics | Equine Leadership and Personal Development these programs support Eat Sleep Ride.
