You know your team's figures. You don't know what state it's in. It is the silent contradiction that exhausts leaders: possessing remarkably precise dashboards on technical performance, and absolutely nothing on what truly determines it. No one taught you how to measure the soft skills of your teams and it is precisely this that wears you out.
This fatigue doesn't come from the workload. It comes from permanent uncertainty. Having to decide without a clear understanding of the situation, arbitrate without knowing who is holding up and who is crumbling, motivate by guessing what matters to each person. It's a continuous, invisible, and rarely acknowledged cognitive effort.
The double blindness that exhausts managers
First blind spot: situational analysis
A leader is constantly reading ambiguous signals. Is a tense meeting a symptom of a fundamental disagreement or of passing fatigue? Is a project that is slowing down down to a problem of competence, resources, or commitment? Without a reliable framework for interpretation, each situation requires a complete reconstruction.
This reconstruction comes at a cost. It demands attention that you don't dedicate to strategy. And it produces decisions about which you are never entirely certain – which fuels rumination, long after the meeting.
Second blind spot: the actual fitness of employees
You know who delivers. You don't know who is holding back. A high-performing employee can be three weeks away from burnout without any indicators signalling it. Another, seemingly discreet, might have considerable reserves that no one has tapped into.
The addition of these two blind spots creates a complexity that most managers absorb in silence: they compensate with intuition for the lack of information provided by the organisation.
Why high-potential talent goes unnoticed
The problem is not the lack of talent. It's the lack of a measuring instrument.
Technical skills can be demonstrated: a degree, a portfolio, a business result. Behavioural skills — those that determine if someone can unite, withstand pressure, and make decisions under uncertainty — remain largely invisible in traditional processes.
Direct consequence: we promote technical excellence in the hope that it will transform into managerial excellence. Sometimes this works. Often, we simultaneously lose an excellent expert and install a struggling manager.
What cannot be measured cannot be managed. And what cannot be managed ends up being guessed.
First response: making the invisible measurable
Emotional intelligence is not intuition, it is data.
This is precisely what psychometric assessments provide. TEIQue (Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire), distributed by Thomas International, was developed by Prof. K. V. Petrides at University College London and is approved by the British Psychological Society.
What the tool allows us to objectify:
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- Emotional self-awareness, which supports leadership and self-regulation during times of change or conflict;
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- empathy and social agility, and their contribution to team cohesion and customer relations;
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- stress regulation, which allows for the assessment of burnout risk and suitability for demanding roles;
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- informed decision-making driven by emotions, and maintaining composure under pressure.
The tool produces a detailed profile covering fifteen facets, based on in-depth academic research. It does not replace your judgment: it gives it a basis to stand on.
What this changes in concrete terms
You stop guessing your team's form: you have a reading of it. You stop spotting high potentials based solely on technical merit: you identify those who also possess behavioural resources. And you enter into conversation with a colleague based on shared elements, not on an impression.
Second response: to experience what the data reveals
A report, however rigorous, remains a read. It indicates a trend; it does not convey the effect that trend has on others.
This is where working with the horse comes in — entirely on foot. No equestrian skills are required: this is not about riding, but about presence, intention, and relationship.
A mirror that doesn't practise complacency
A colleague can nod in agreement without actually agreeing. A peer can tell you what your position makes difficult to contradict. The horse, however, responds neither to title nor to speech. It responds to your true state: your tension, the clarity of your intention, your ability to build trust without raising your voice.
A predator, it reads non-verbal cues with a precision few humans can match. This reading is expressed immediately, without filter and without political calculation. For a leader accustomed to receiving muted feedback, this is information of rare value.
Four horses, four readings: the jury principle
This is where the device stands out from a simple animal mediation session. Throughout the day, you work with up to four different horses, selected for their contrasting profiles.
This choice is far from trivial. A generous horse will compensate for your mistakes and give you a flattering image. A responsive horse will not let anything slide. A reserved horse will require you to seek out a relationship. Each tests a different dimension of your posture.
They thus form a jury What works with the first does not necessarily work with the next. Learning validated by four independent readings is no longer an impression – it's a skill. This successive confrontation considerably raises the quality of the feedback, and it makes self-satisfaction impossible.
The loop: measure, then test
The connection between the two approaches is what produces lasting change:
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- The TEIQue objective — it precisely names a behavioural tendency, for example, difficulty in regulating pressure.
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- The horses make it tangible — this same tension becomes visible in a few minutes, in the reaction of the animals.
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- Coaching transforms her — you experience another register, immediately, and you measure its effect.
The report indicates What. The horses are showing comment.
The schedule: one day, then a return six weeks later
The training takes place over 1.5 days in total a full day, then a half-day at 6 weeks post-start. This second appointment is not a supplement – it’s the reason why the learning sticks.
Upstream: assessment
You will complete the TEIQue questionnaire before the training. The report is not sent by email with an invitation to «review the results»: it will be kept for the day itself.
Day 1 — Morning: Debrief
The day begins with a confidential one-to-one debriefing of your profile. This isn't about going through a document; instead, we'll identify two or three concrete areas to focus on, which will serve as a guide for the following hours. You'll then head out into the field knowing precisely what you're looking to observe in yourself.
Day 1 — The Day: The Hearing
Encounters with the horses follow one another, interspersed with periods of analysis. Each animal brings a different interpretation of the same posture. Between sessions, your coach helps you articulate what has just happened — and adjust before the next horse.
The progress is immediately perceptible: what failed with the first horse becomes possible with the third, because you have modified something real in your way of being.
Day 1 – End of the day: The transposing
The most defining time. What professional situation does each moment of the day evoke? Which colleague reacts like a reserved horse? Which meeting produces the tension you felt?
You are leaving with precise commitments, formulated by you, applicable from the following Monday.
6 weeks later – the half-day that makes the difference
Six weeks later, let's revisit the in-practice realities. What's been implemented in the office? What's held up? What situations have brought back old habits?
It is this appointment that neutralises the curve of forgetting. Classic training produces a peak of enthusiasm, then fades: un-revisited learning dissipates within a few weeks, and the organisation reverts to its old habits. By returning at the very moment the effect begins to wane, what has stuck is consolidated and what has given way is re-worked.
This is also what makes the training experiential, transferable and applicable — not three brochure adjectives, but the exact description of the device: you experience, you transpose, you apply, then you go back to check.
Who is this device intended for
To leaders and managers who recognise the fatigue described at the outset, and who wish to stop compensating for it with intuition alone.
No equestrian skills are required. All the work is done on foot. Not being a rider is often even an advantage: no technique masks the quality of the relationship.
The device is aimed at both French and international customers. It is offered in France and the United Arab Emirates, in French and English.
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- Duration: 1.5 days – one day, then half a day at 6 weeks post-op
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- Format: Individual or collective, depending on your objectives
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- Evaluation TEIQue (Thomas International) beforehand, debriefing on the day
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- Terrain up to 4 selected horses, ground work only
Discover the full programme
Consult the interactive presentation
Our approach, the six axes of transformation and all of our programmes — in French and English. View the presentation
Frequently asked questions
Is it necessary to know how to ride a horse?
No. All the work is done on foot. No riding experience is necessary, and a lack of practice is not a disadvantage in any way.
Is the Thomas test included?
Yes. The TEIQue questionnaire is completed beforehand, and its feedback session opens the training day.
Why several horses?
Because a single horse only gives one reading. Four contrasting profiles make it possible to verify that learning is truly retained, instead of relying on a good rapport with an accommodating animal on one occasion.
Why come back six weeks later?
Because it's the moment when un-reinforced learnings begin to fade. This half-day transforms a memorable experience into lasting change.
Can this be applied to my professional daily life?
This is the very purpose of the system. The transposition is worked on explicitly at the end of the day, then checked during the follow-up session.
Can the whole team participate?
Yes. The device is available in individual and collective formats.
The accompaniment individual allows you to go deeper: each passage with the horses is analysed for a single person, without outside scrutiny or a posture to maintain.
The format collective adds a dimension that the individual cannot produce: each person observes the others. Seeing a colleague get from a horse what you couldn't, and then understanding what they did differently, constitutes a particularly powerful form of learning. Team dynamics also appear as they are — who takes the initiative, who waits, who reassures.
The choice is made according to your objective: developing a leader, or working on the collective functioning of a team.
Go further
NB & Associés Horse Coaching is established in the United Arab Emirates and operates between the Gulf and Normandy. Our conviction: performance and human development are not mutually exclusive – they feed each other.
To discuss your situation +33 (0) 6 30 32 60 63 you Nadiabazille@nb-associes.academy.
