By now, many of you know I am a big fan of our furry feline friends and that I have a Tuxedo Cat named Juice who is a bundle of energy combined with unbridled love for her “parents.” Juice like most cats is fiercely independent in addition to being a sound and sensible decision maker.
Cats know who to associate with and who not to associate with within their own species as well as us humans and how to build loyalty. They have incredible hearing with eyes that pierce through the darkest of nights.
Conversely a leader must have a keen sense of hearing to go with a high level of understanding just as felines do.
A leader must possess good eyesight for sake of everyday vision in addition to a vision of where he is leading people. His decision-making skills like that of the cat must be swift, sure and concrete.
A leader should observe the behavior of cats (the elite breeds especially) so they can witness while learning how to build loyalty amongst those that he is leading. A cat has incredible instincts that either draw them to or away from people for reasons they do not share. Similarly a leader can and must learn who to associate with and whom to avoid at all cost.
Cats are incredibly affectionate creatures to those they care about.
Nobody is saying leader should have rough tongue and smother you with their kisses nor up against you and purr but it is imperative the leader comes across as a warm caring and open-minded individual.
Leader like cats come in different varieties each with their own unique personality types. The perennially aloof cat lacks for companionship or worse yet a home to live in. Leaders certainly do not (or should not) lack a stable permanent residence nor hold an aloof opinion of those he is leading since if he does act in an aloof manner people will not trust him to lead them.
Cats can be fierce warriors who will use all the natural weaponry they were given to inflict as much harm and pain perhaps even death upon their enemies. What leader can learn from this is that he too much use all resources in order to lead effectively. On the battlefield the leader must have the ability to lead his troops into combat so as to inflict as many casualties as possible. A time-tested battlefield commander has nothing to learn about combat from a cat but a leader has to know what battles he must fight armed with strategic strategy that will lead to victory. A cat will show a leader how important it is to have readable body language.
Our feline friends are incredibly manipulative creatures. By instinct they know your strengths and weakness while having the ability to work both aspects of your personality. So to the leader (he should never be purposely manipulative) but he should know to what degree he can be taken advantage of. He will need to learn how to work with people who try to use cunning to weaken his leadership. A cat who happens to be a leader will never allow themselves to be put into a compromising position.
Although cats have no conception or measure of time you never see them unnerved by the ending of a day not having accomplished what they needed to.
If the star lit sky signifies the end of the day, the leader must be content with his leadership activities from that day.
While a cat can often times lose focus or interest in an activity depending once again on the breed as certain bread of cats have longer attention spans a leader can never drift away from his primary focus. Like the cat when engaged in an activity the leader must have the same laser like focus without being easily distracted.
It is true that a cat (domesticated) depend on their “owners” to provide for their meals while keeping their bathroom (litter box) clean and odor free they are still even in an indoor environment remain independent thinkers who have a way to communicate their wants. So too must the leader be an independent thinker capable of multi-faceted methods of communication.
As incredulous as it may sound a leader can and must be a student in the behavioral intricacy of animals such as cats since they can teach him lessons and skills that will only enhance his leadership capability.
Time for Juice to go to sleep!
Being that I have three cats I totally get this. Thank you Joel
I have always maintained that animals communicate on a higher plane than we do since they do not speak any formal language but manage to communicate with us. They also show us how to do certain things that we cannot. Thank you for your comments, Larry. I hope all is well with you.
Been busy reevaluating what I am doing on social media. I left a lot of the LinkedIn groups. I get good response from linked in proper but not the groups. Facebook I do really well with. So I’m going to focus on what’s working and getting rid of what’s not working. Facebook I do really well with. So I’m going to focus on what’s working and get rid of what’s not working. I like the new platform Dennis has it’s small and people communicate. I think it’s important that they realize that they need more readers then theywe need writers. If you have 50 writers you’ll get very little interaction. If you have five writer and 50 readers you will get much more interaction. Writers need an audience of reader. Some groups on LinkedIn have 100,000 followers but they’re all writers Thus you have no audience. Well this is based on many months of analytics it still just my opinion.
We agree with your thought process/analysis here, Larry. Smaller is better and more N-gagers is what we are hoping to discover/develop over time. As we’ve discussed, it’s a re-education process as far too many people have fallen into the “like” trap, without taking time to explain why the like what they’ve liked and probing further… A work in progress, with early sign of hope… Will be sending you and a few others a separate message soon as to our plans for Phase II for the Café.
Thank you.
This article penetrates deeply. I learned a lot from the first layer. Now I’m going to read it again and jot down a few leadership teachings from Cat that I want to remember.
Milli, Thank you for taking the time to read my article. I wrote another article about leadership that was entitled Lessons Of Leadership Learned By Feeding The Birds. I have had many cats over the years but our latest family member (my wife and I consider our cat to be family as opposed to being a pet) Juice has taught us so much. She has incredible communication skills. I hold to the opinion that we have much to learn from animals if we allow ourselves to be tutored by them. By the way, I rarely write about leadership or business. My articles are very personal in nature. I usually have a song added to my articles that are in line with the subject matter of the article. Once again let me thank you for joining the group. Here is my contact information should you ever need it.
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone#-(347) 713-1684
Mobile# (718) 787-8165. I am very active and visible on LinkedIn and Facebook. If you should want the links to my profile on both of those social media outlets I will be happy to provide them to you. NOTHING I post is inappropriate or offensive.
Thanks, Joel! I’m off to read your article “Lessons Of Leadership Learned By Feeding The Birds.”
Thank you! Please let me know what you think.
I imagine that many will know the story of the geese and the manager. it is an example of what the birds can teach the world of business and allow me to remember here. What they have to teach the geese to a manager? Everything is in a V formation with which they migrate, they move. In addition to giving everyone the opportunity/obligation to lead the group in turn, there is another fundamental rule: the beating of wings of a bird opens the way to what is behind keeping at altitude and all going farther. Lesson: People who share a common goal, they can go in the chosen direction faster and more easily, since they travel upheld by the confidence of each member of the group.
Birds are very intelligent creatures. A parakeet can be trained to speak English even if the words are limited. Each species conducts leadership in a different manner but there is a leader or shared leadership responsibility. I rarely (except when the birds are in a sense pushing each other to get to the bread first) see animals in prolonged dispute or bucking the leader. The examples you gave about animals in relation to human leadership are exemplary. Thank you Aldo, for your comments.
Of course we have more opportunity to observe pets as we spend more time with them, but wild life can be very educational too. After retiring we lived in the woods for 14 years. We had the usual mix of wild life, plus a black bear and a cougar. We kept chickens, ducks, geese, and rabbits too. I’m convinced that different species communicate with each other. Chicken and ducks for example.
We now, not in the woods any longer, have a young raccoon that comes by our house for a breakfast of dog food each morning. If I’m not at the pool cage at 9 am she knocks on the door. I ask her what she wants and she pats the ground and puts her paws to her mouth. Understanding and communication.
Ken, I agree wholeheartedly with your statement attesting to the fact that the more we observe our pets along with wildlife provides valuable lessons to us when it comes to many different facets of our interactions including leadership. Different species of animals do work out (with some clashes in between ) a code of how they will coexist as well as communicate. I am of the opinion that animals have long since established their own rules of leadership whereby they clearly understand what they are to do. It would also seem that they are more sophisticated in their methodology than we are. I want to thank you, Ken, for your comments.
Joel, I do think we can all learn from animals.
Ken,
Thank you for continuing the discussion. The biggest thing I think we can learn from animals is that despite differences there is plenty of room for everybody to get along. From animals we can also learn that hard work and perseverance will more often than that lead to success. Lastly, I think we can all learn about love from animals. They love their children and in so many cases they come to love us. The difference between the children of an animal and that of a human is that human children want material things from us which we cannot and should not always provide. Children from animals want the love of their mother (the father is rarely around after the mother gives birth) and food. They require little else. Thank you again Ken for your question.
Ken,
Please see my response to your question below.
Ken I could not agree with you more.
Without a doubt!
Chris, Thank you as usual for your readership and comments. There is much to be learned from animals and insects if we just observe their behavior along with how they interact with each other. Many animals have their own special way they communicate with humans that is distinctly different than the method they would use when communicating with each other. I chose cats as my subject since I have one and come to admire the way they communicate with us. Thank you again Chris.
I just finished reading “Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are”
https://www.amazon.ca/Are-Smart-Enough-Know-Animals/dp/0393246183
It talks about how an intelligence is different for different animals; say a chimp is smarter than a human with certain types of memorization. I like this article because we can expand the notion of not just learning from cats, we can learn from monkeys, dogs, insects, and plants. Yes, plants because plants have a certain kind of intelligence too. Watch “What do plants talk about?” for more context.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkUoVyzPEak
To learn better about ourselves we need to learn from humans, computers, and the other flora and fauna. I wonder. What does bacteria talk about?
It’s funny in a way to see a comment from you as just the other day I was wondering what happened to you as I hadn’t received any comments from you in quite a long time. Without a doubt, we can learn so much from the various species of animals. As far as plants go you are absolutely right. Our plants do have communications skills although it is not as pronounced as animals. It is not crazy to talk to plants. I watch how bees interact with each other as well as with birds and squirrels but I do not get too close to bees or allow them too close to me as I am terrified of bees. Flies and Mosquitos I am not fond of nor are they of interest. I have never seen bacteria under a microscope so I can’t really comment on them. Chris, as always it is a pleasure to hear from you.
Love the article, Joel. We had a cat named Beans. She let us live with her for 23 years. Yes, we can learn a lot from cats. In fact that is true of all animals. People that refer to “dumb animals” have never spent any time with animals. One of the smartest we have had was a pot bellied pig. There was also a very intelligent Nubian goat.
You don’t see animals making war on each other, having bias over the color of one’s fur, or robbing each other. Most are also good parents. They manage their lives and relationships much better than many humans do.
Ken,
Thank you for taking time to read my article in addition to your comments. You really hit the nail on the head with your comments. May I ask your opinion if a leader let’s say in a business environment can learn from a cat or any other animal for that matter. Thank again for reading and commenting.