Exhausted, thigh deep in swirling, icy water with sixty pounds of kicking calf draped around its neck, 175 pounds of Homo Sapiens stared in pure panic directly up into the blood-red eyes of three quarters of a ton of frantic mother cow convinced I was butchering her baby and a ton of enraged bull determined to save his family. In that brief instant, eye-to-eye with nearly two tons of bovine fury, the essence of management was simple and clear. First: manage myself and get mind, body, and emotions under control before they ceased to exist. Second: manage two tons of enraged, bovine superiors who most certainly had power over me. Third: manage my environment and find a way out of the ravine. Fourth, and by far the least important, manage my only subordinate, the kicking calf. And, oh, how I wished the calf knew the theory and had managed himself, his superiors and his environment, and not put the whole outfit into such an unholy mess in the first place.
What then happened in the middle of the night to Eunice, her calf and a panic stricken Homo Sapiens in a ditch need not be told, for that is not the point of the story. But for those who must find a moral in every story it is simply this: If your keep your wits about you, you can learn everything you need to know about leadership from a one-horned cow.