68. “How Authentic Leadership Empowers Collective Change” With Kelly Wendorf – Flying Lead Change

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Welcome to episode 68 of the Nurtured by Nature podcast, today I’m delighted to be joined in conversation by Kelly Wendorf author of Flying Lead Change and the Founder and CEO of Equus.

We find ourselves at a time of interlocking crisis, not least a crisis of our own spirit, drawing us to desperately search for the sense of deeper connection and meaning that our soul’s are calling us towards, even whilst it feels we are seemingly drowning in a world that is descending into chaos. 

Kelly and her book are a guiding light of infinite wisdom that offers us a simple path to nurturing the true qualities of leadership that will restore balance and bring us back into right relationship with the land and ancestors, allowing us to see a world beyond the constraints of our current Power Over paradigm. 

Guided by the culture of the horse, one of the oldest most enduring and successful species on the planet, whose destiny has been entwined with our own for millennia, she offers us the lessons she has received from the herd and the generosity of Indigenous elders such as Uncle Bob Randle. With a compassionate approach she encourages us to lean into gentle self-enquiry to heal our trauma and shares how we can take the 7 principles of Listening, Care, Presence, Safety, Connection, Peace, Freedom and Joy to come home to the true essence of who we are. A collective change of heart that offers a place from which we are capable of empowering the social change we are craving to enact a radical shift in the dynamics of how we do things.

“Nature Misses Us” and it is time to lay down the chains of shame we have wrapped ourselves in and choose to be radically Authentic how we lead ourselves & others to bring more love into the world.

Learn more about Kelly

Kelly Wendorf is an ICF (International Coach Federation) Master Certified Coach, published author, spiritual mentor, disruptor, and socially responsible entrepreneur.
Her early experiences were vitally and deeply shaped by the natural and ancient world around her where she learned a way of listening to forces within people, nature and moments. This unconventional education grants her a gift of perception that liberates untapped potential and hidden gifts within individuals and organizations, helping them to solve problems differently through a wisdom-informed and wholeness approach.
Throughout her life she has lived and worked around the world, studying with many spiritual and Indigenous leaders in India, Africa, Indonesia and Australia. Such immersion in multi-cultural perspectives has honed a passion for creating a new narrative in the human condition, empowering high-performing individuals, organizations, and their leaders to wield meaningful change in their families, communities, and in the world through servant leadership and innovative business development. She has worked inside a spectrum of clientele – from

Amazon, to Microsoft to some of the most underserved communities. She has been called a ‘corporate shaman’ and a ‘CEO whisperer’. She is known for being a trustworthy translator of ancient cosmologies to contemporary relevance.
Kelly founded, edited and published Kindred magazine (Australia), an evidence-based publication that explores the social, cultural and biological underpinnings of a compassionate society. Here she spent 15 years immersed in the field of neuroscience and neuropsychology and its relationship to social justice and transformative cultural change. Kelly also authored and edited Stories of Belonging (Finch), an anthology from authors around the world, including the often excluded Indigenous voices. Her book, Flying Lead Change – 56 Million Years of Wisdom for Leadership and Living (Sounds True) was released in December 2020.
As founder of EQUUS she specializes in the liberation of robust leadership capacities in those who are most qualified — the empathetic, the conscientious, the accountable, the wise, the generous, and the kind.
As a gifted educator and facilitator, Kelly developed Wisdom Circles®, a peer-learning and group coaching model. An intuitive lifelong horsewoman, she also developed The EQUUS Experience® — an award-winning equine-assisted transformational learning process. Wisdom Circles and The EQUUS Experience are recognized as powerful differentiators in organizational change movement.
Together with her uniquely skilled team of professionals, Kelly continues to develop and grow The EQUUS Experience, Wisdom Circles, and EQUUS’s other complimentary processes that curate various awareness-based frameworks that create breakthrough learning and discovery.

Flying Lead Change:

In horsemanship, a “flying lead change” allows a running horse to respond with breathtaking grace to changing conditions. “Collectively, we need a similar physics-defying maneuver,” Wendorf writes. “This book is for the called―thought leaders, visionaries, parents, creatives, and all those who sense we are being asked to participate in humanity’s ‘flying change’ through the way we live, love, and lead.”
In Flying Lead Change, leadership teacher Kelly Wendorf offers a new approach to leading and living inspired by two profound sources of ancient wisdom: Original peoples and one of nature’s unexpected emissaries, equus (Latin for horse), grounded in evidence-based principles of neuroscience.
Wendorf teaches a way of leadership modeled on a 56 million-year-old system of the horse herd––a path that has allowed humans and horses alike to survive the kinds of global and societal threats we now face, such as climate change and mass extinction.

Here she takes you step by step through this powerful approach, including:
• Listening―the starting point for all leadership, in which we suspend our biases and preferences
• Care―explore the ancient, indigenous understanding of care that is reciprocal, empathic, and beneficial to all
• Presence―meeting the here and now with vulnerability, openness, and a stable foundation
• Safety―how a masterful leader creates a sense of group resilience and strength by “leading from behind” for the welfare of all
• Connection―ways to move away from coercion and force to promote genuine communication and belonging
• Peace―creating group harmony right now through the surprising concepts of “congruence” and “tempo”
• Freedom―returning to our wild nature that is inherently free, unbridled, and unbroken

• Joy―moving beyond temporary happiness to a state of wholehearted engagement of life, whatever the circumstances

Website: https://kellywendorf.com

Learn More About Equus: https://www.equusinspired.com

Special Listener Gift: 100% off of “How to Lead a Transformative Life” – worth $457

Online Sept/Oct 2025

https://www.theequusacademy.org/courses/how-to-lead-a-transformative-life-2025

Use Code: Use EQUUS100KW

Thank you for being a part of this journey with me.

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