Good management consultants, trainers, coaches, speakers, and industry experts inspire us to be winners. Many use popular metaphors to motivate us. One I hear a lot at conferences and in books is “you gotta be the lead dog.” You probably heard these phrases too in books and at conferences over the years:

• “If you’re not the lead dog, the view never changes!”

• “Being the lead dog should be your motivation.”

• “You gotta be the lead dog, or you’re always looking at someone’s ass.”

• “Don’t ever be one of the poor sons of bitches running behind the lead dog.”

Given such advice's longevity and widespread use, it must have lasting value we all can learn from. These experts can be proud of the motivational impact they’ve had by sharing their wisdom with us.

But I was curious where it all started.

That’s when I did something stupid.

I asked lead dogs.

AUTOPSY

Researching the sources of this fantastic leadership insight uncovered one minor detail. None of these “experts” ever ran a dog-sled team.

What?

A management guru never researched what they were preaching?

Did you really just ask that question?

My kids grew up skiing in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. With a legendary history of creating top competitive skiers, Steamboat’s Olympic-level instructors improve even the most difficult students. Not me, but a friend.

Every year at Steamboat, I’d take a break with my kids to run dog-sled teams. I got so addicted to the sport that I try to find a dog-sled facility whenever I’m in the mountains during winter. At Steamboat, we prefer to use Grizzle-T Dog & Sled Works to train us to be better mushers. They train dogs for the Iditarod, so we can assume they know a little bit about dog sledding.

Here’s what I learned:

The only poor sons of bitches on a dog sled team are the lead dogs!

Why?

Busted

What do dogs behind the lead dogs do?

Contrary to what the “experts” have been telling us, they do everything but look at the lead dog’s ass! They enjoy the run, relish the side views, bark at each other, pull off to one side or the next, and totally ignore the poor leaders in front trying to keep them on the trail.

On one trip at a facility in the Rockies, I got the team running but a couple dogs jumped over the gangline as we took off (it’s the line that attaches the dogs’ harness tuglines to the sled). Once again, the dogs failed to follow the lead dog and just decided to change positions. This unbalanced the team. As we picked up speed I felt a strong pull too hard to the left. I leaned right as I was trained to do, but it wasn’t enough. We started going off trail into deep snow; and a ravine. This meant a sled tip was imminent. A tip is never a good thing because if it flipped, I’d be thrown off, and the sled would slide into the ravine . . . but my five-year-old son was inside!

It became scary real fast.

The lead dogs had no more control and would be pulled into the ravine no matter how hard they wanted the rest to follow them and keep on the trail. Realizing that, my training kicked in and I stood on the snow brake pad, but it failed to grip the deep snow, and we were getting deeper. Next, knowing I had to balance the sled in this emergency, I quickly hopped off the back and onto the runners on the opposite side, stood up, and leaned backwards, hanging on with my arms outstretched to counterbalance the weight and prevent flipping (kind of like when burying the rail in catamaran racing).

Realizing the crisis, a snowmobile zoomed past and halted the team. They rotated the dogs, who still refused to look at the lead dog’s ass, but we now had a more balanced team and, once again, a great trail ride.

One year later at another location, it was a beautiful day. Untouched snow could be seen for miles, the sky was so clear we could see miles down range, and we breathed nothing but fresh, crisp air. We ran the dogs for about a mile until we approached a sharp bend around a steep hill. The dogs picked up their pace. We were moving fast, so hanging on became fun and exciting as we hit that curve at high speed! The only problem was the other musher thought it was fun and exciting too . . . coming from the opposite direction!

They met us straight on.

We experienced a very rare dog-sledding accident – a head-on collision. Literally!

And who were the poor suckers taking the brunt of that mistake “head-on”?

Yes, the lead dogs.

I got another clue about lead dogs when I took my two corgis to doggie daycare one day. As a single dad with full custody after a brutal divorce, I needed help with the dogs. One day I asked the owner about this “lead dog” thing. She laughed, “Nobody wants to be the lead dog. It’s a pain in the ass having all these dogs follow you around. They are constantly bothered and look annoyed all day. So, they try to avoid it!”

But, needing more data, I went to another group to expose this myth: 30,000 CEOs.

I’ve trained many CEOs in over 2,000 workshops, and whenever I probe how much fun they are having, they sound like battered lead dogs. One CEO summed it up nicely,

“Imagine always trying to get everybody to follow you, having the buck stop on your desk, being the only one feeling panic when the bank calls, being off course and you’re the only one in the meeting feeling pain, everybody thinking you’re the complaint-desk, always needing to find great talent, or feeling guilty going home and dumping on the spouse at the end of a long day.”

Sure, there are fun and fulfilling reasons to be a CEO, but being the lead dog isn’t one of them.

WHAT TO DO

Ignore any speaker who says you should be the lead dog. They’ve never run a dog-sled team and have no idea what they’re talking about. The lead dog position sucks!

But don’t we need lead dogs?

Yes. Of course. And if you’re one, you’re probably doing what lead dogs really do. You’re the one in front. You have to build trust, stay focused, have patience with those behind you, drive forward with confidence (even if you lack it), persevere despite the brutal elements trying to stop you, and take the head-on collisions. And if you think the ones behind you are going to blindly follow your ass wherever it goes, you’ll be off trail heading into a ravine soon enough!

So, if you want to be a lead dog, remember that it’s a necessary position, but also a LOT of work.

Here are a few tips for lead dogs:

• Share your lead. That doesn’t mean there won’t be certain critical or emergency situations where you’ll have to step in and direct, but engage your people on the path forward. Let them share in the future, help you solve problems, takes the curves, and learn from mistakes.

• Don’t do all the pulling. If you feel you’re shouldering too much, where can you delegate, outsource, start an ad-hoc team, or try other solutions to share the load? And if you can’t delegate, where is your team weak and what can you do to make it stronger or balanced? Or is someone just not ready to be on the team?

• Lean on your musher. When you’re out there alone, be sure to run with a good Board, trusted advisors, or an executive peer group. You need someone on the sled behind you so you can look back to them when you need help or confidence for the path ahead.

Well, that’s it. Hopefully, you enjoyed another myth busted.

Feel free to share this with other lead dogs!

Funding for the research used in this blog and our books comes from educational services. If you're ready for fresh, unique, scientifically-based programs to increase organizational performance, contact Don directly at [email protected].

(He’s also available for speeches.)