Posts
What Sheep Dogs Know About Supervising Teams That Most Managers Don't
Related Reading:
Three weeks ago, I was watching my mate's border collie work a mob of sheep near Ballarat, and it hit me like a brick wall. This dog understood team supervision better than 80% of the managers I'd worked with in my twenty-three years consulting to Australian businesses.
No joke.
Here's this animal—no MBA, no leadership training courses, no fancy PowerPoint presentations about "synergistic team dynamics"—and she's orchestrating forty-seven sheep with the precision of a Swiss watch. Meanwhile, back in Melbourne's corporate towers, I've got clients paying me thousands to fix teams that can't organise a simple project handover.
The dog never once raised her voice. Never sent passive-aggressive emails. Never scheduled a meeting to discuss why the sheep weren't following the designated pathway to optimal paddock utilisation outcomes.
She just knew where each sheep needed to be, and she made it happen.
The Positioning Problem Most Supervisors Get Wrong
Most human supervisors make the classic mistake of thinking supervision means standing at the front, barking orders, and expecting everyone to fall in line. Wrong approach entirely.
Watch a good working dog. She positions herself where she can see the whole flock, but more importantly, where the flock can see her. She's not trying to be the star of the show—she's trying to make the sheep successful at being sheep.
I learned this the hard way managing a team of IT contractors back in 2019. Spent six months wondering why nothing was getting done properly, despite my detailed project briefs and weekly check-ins. Turns out I was positioning myself as the bottleneck, not the facilitator. Every decision had to flow through me, every problem needed my approval to solve.
The sheep dog doesn't do this. She trusts the sheep to want to move in the right direction—her job is just to provide gentle guidance when they start wandering off track.
Pressure Points vs. Stress Points
Here's where most supervisors stuff it up completely. They think applying pressure means creating stress, and that's absolute rubbish.
Good pressure is like what the dog applies—consistent, predictable, and purposeful. She'll move slightly to the left, and the sheep know to adjust right. No drama, no panic, just clear communication about direction.
Bad pressure is what happens in most Australian workplaces: sudden deadline changes, unclear expectations, and that toxic culture where people are afraid to admit they're struggling. I've seen teams at major retailers (won't name names, but you know the ones) where staff are so stressed about making mistakes that they stop taking any initiative at all.
The difference? Sheep dogs apply pressure to move the flock forward. Bad supervisors apply pressure because they're panicking themselves.
A sheep dog never chases a sheep that's already moving in the right direction. Think about that for a minute.
Reading the Room (or Paddock)
Working dogs have this incredible ability to read the mood of the flock. They can tell when sheep are getting agitated, tired, or confused, and they adjust their approach accordingly.
Most supervisors I meet couldn't read their team's mood if it was tattooed on their foreheads.
You've got Sarah staying back late every night but producing half her usual quality work—clearly struggling with something, but instead of checking in, you just pile on more tasks. You've got Marcus who used to contribute great ideas in meetings but hasn't spoken up in three weeks—something's shifted, but you're too busy with your own deadlines to notice.
Meanwhile, the sheep dog spots one ewe getting antsy and immediately knows the whole flock's about to get restless. She doesn't wait for a crisis—she moves proactively to settle things down.
The Art of Strategic Patience
This is the bit that really gets me wound up about modern management culture. Everything has to happen yesterday, every problem needs an immediate solution, every team member should be operating at peak performance every single day.
Absolute madness.
A sheep dog working a difficult mob will sometimes spend twenty minutes positioning one stubborn ram, because she knows that once he moves, the rest will follow. She doesn't get frustrated, doesn't start barking at every sheep individually, doesn't call in backup dogs to speed up the process.
She just maintains consistent pressure and waits for the right moment.
I worked with a construction supervisor in Darwin last year who'd learned this lesson the hard way. Used to lose his mind when his trades weren't moving fast enough, would start micromanaging every task, creating more delays than he solved. Now he focuses on removing obstacles and providing proper supervisory training for his team leaders, then steps back and lets the expertise flow.
Results speak for themselves—project completion times improved by 34%, and staff turnover dropped to practically nothing.
Territory and Boundaries
Sheep dogs understand territory in ways that would make most HR departments weep with envy. They know exactly how much space each sheep needs to feel comfortable, they respect the natural hierarchy of the flock, and they never try to force sheep into positions that go against their instincts.
Compare this to open-plan offices where you've got introverts forced into constant collaboration, detail-oriented people rushed through quality checks, and natural leaders relegated to following rigid processes that make no sense.
I'm not saying we should let chaos reign—but there's wisdom in understanding that different team members work best in different conditions. Some people need more space to think, others thrive on constant interaction. Some are natural point-people who should be making decisions, others are brilliant at executing plans but shouldn't be designing strategy.
The dog doesn't try to make every sheep behave identically. She works with their natural tendencies to achieve the overall objective.
When Things Go Sideways
Here's what separates good supervisors from ordinary ones: how they handle problems.
When sheep scatter (and they will), a good working dog doesn't panic. Doesn't start running around in circles trying to round up every individual animal. Doesn't call an emergency meeting to discuss why the scattering occurred and how to prevent future scattering incidents.
She identifies the core problem—usually one or two sheep that spooked the rest—and focuses her energy there. Once the main issue is sorted, the rest naturally falls back into line.
I've watched managers spend weeks in crisis mode over problems that could've been solved with thirty minutes of focused attention on the real cause. Usually it's a communication breakdown between two key people, or someone feeling overwhelmed but not knowing how to ask for help.
Fix the core issue, and 87% of the other problems resolve themselves.
The Paradox of Control
This is where it gets really interesting, and where most supervisors' heads explode when I explain it to them.
The sheep dog has almost complete influence over where forty-seven sheep go, but she achieves this by giving up direct control over what each individual sheep does moment by moment.
She's not telling sheep number 23 to take three steps forward and turn slightly left. She's creating conditions where sheep number 23 naturally wants to move in that direction.
Most supervisors try to control everything and end up influencing nothing. They're so focused on managing every detail that they lose sight of the bigger picture, and their teams become dependent on constant direction instead of developing their own judgment.
The best supervisor I ever worked with—ran a logistics operation in Perth with about sixty staff—used to say her job was to make herself unnecessary. Not unemployed, unnecessary. Big difference.
Her teams knew exactly what needed to happen, why it mattered, and how their individual contributions fitted into the larger success. When problems arose, they solved them. When opportunities appeared, they grabbed them. When new staff started, the team trained them.
She was the sheep dog in the paddock—present, watchful, ready to provide guidance when needed, but trusting her people to do what they did best.
The Bottom Line
Look, I'm not suggesting we all start herding our teams around like livestock. But there's something fundamentally right about how working dogs approach the challenge of getting a group to move effectively toward a common goal.
They understand that supervision isn't about control—it's about influence. They know that different individuals need different approaches. They read the mood of the group and adjust accordingly. They apply pressure purposefully, not emotionally. They focus on core problems rather than getting distracted by symptoms.
And they never, ever, schedule a meeting to discuss why the sheep aren't being more proactive about their own herding experience.
Maybe we could learn something from that.
Further Resources: