What Hunting Kestrels Can Teach Us About Leadership

Have you ever watched a video of a Kestrel Hunting?

For those who don't know, Kestrels are a type of Falcon.

When they hunt, they have this ability to seemingly "hover" in the air.

As they do this, their heads literally are able to keep perfectly still.

They make slight adjustments to their wings and bodies to maintain their speed with the wind around them.

However, their heads don't budge at all.

This allows them to keep laser-focused on the ground as they search for their prey.

It is extremely fascinating to witness.

But what does it have to do with Leadership?

Keep Your Focus Clear

When you watch the Kestrel hover, nothing impedes its vision.

You can see that there is turbulence as the Kestrel maintains its hover, but its head remains perfectly still.

You can see that there is no force that will get in the way of the Kestrel and its Focus on hunting.

In Leadership, we will encounter a LOT of difficulties.

If you are not careful, your vision - of the future, of what can be done, of what is going wrong - can be negatively impacted.

Ensure that despite everything happening, you always keep your Focus crystal clear.

Understand Your Environment

Looking at the Kestrel maintaining its hover, you can see that the conditions it is under are not perfect.

The winds are obviously unsteady and if the Kestrel wasn't ready, it would be easy to see how the bird could easily be thrown around all over the place in chaos.

However, this result is completely avoided.

The Kestrel masterfully seems to understand all of the ways that the wind can move and is able to maintain a perfectly still head through all of the seemingly random changes.

It all also happens so quickly that there is no possible way that the Kestrel would be able to think about how to understand the Environment.

The Kestrel's understanding of its Environment is completely internalized, allowing it to maintain focus on hunting.

As a Leader, our Environments can cause tremendous challenges.

However, when we understand how all of those factors can play out, what may seem difficult or impossible to others ends up looking simple to a prepared Leader.

This only becomes possible when you, as a Leader, have internalized all the ways the Environment can play out.

You can't allow yourself to be blindsided by Environmental factors, allowing them to toss you and your organization into chaos.

You must be able to feel what is happening and know it so well that even though there is chaos around you, it has no impact on you.

Make Microadjustments

As you watch the Kestrel, you will see that everything below its head makes movements in such a way that the head stays still.

There are no big or grandiose moves that the Kestrel makes until it is ready to attack.

Every movement is small but purposeful.

If its movements were large, it would quickly get diverted.

More often than not, Leaders take actions that are too drastic for what is occurring, or they make changes with no real purpose behind them.

When this occurs, often new problems are created for Leaders, sometimes which are more difficult to deal with.

Most of the time, all that is needed to keep businesses moving toward a goal are Microadjustments.

They may seem small and barely visible to an outside perspective, but that is because the outside doesn't understand the same intricacies that you do as a Leader.

Understand What Is Most Important

Watching the Kestrel, you can quickly in a matter of seconds see what its top priority is.

Everything that the Kestrel does, every move it makes, has one purpose.

Keep its vision perfectly still.

Every other action revolves around that singular purpose.

If it doesn't serve that purpose, the Kestrel doesn't do it.

As a Leader, it is easy to get carried away with thinking that "everything is equally important".

However, that simply isn't true.

In every business, there are only a few things that are actually important.

You need to know what those are within your business.

Everything else you do needs to solely revolve around that purpose, and that purpose only.

There will be many fantastic ideas presented to you in your career, all of them tempting.

But if they don't directly pertain and aid what is most important, they don't really hold value for you.

Wait To Strike

Why does the Kestrel maintain its hover?

It is waiting.

It is demonstrating an extreme level of patience.

Waiting for what?

The perfect opportunity to strike.

Often in business, Leaders will attempt to strike as quickly as possible.

However, the first to strike does not always win.

In general, the organization that wins is the one that has analyzed the problem the best, come up with a great solution (not always the best solution though), and markets the problem best (not the solution).

The technical term for this is "Category Design".

Whoever designs the Category the best is the one that gets known as understanding the problem best, and then they "Strike" with their solution to the problem.

They have patience in designing the Category and getting known for understanding the reality that customers regularly face.

As they get known, the inevitable question that comes up is, "Wow, you understand this problem I face perfectly - how do you solve it?"

That is the moment of the strike.

However, if you rush to move too quickly, the target will notice your motives, much as the Kestrel's prey is watching out for potential threats.

If you don't prove you understand the problem, you will be seen as a threat instead of a solution to the problem.

Have patience, prove you understand the problem that is being faced, and then you earn the right to be the solution.