The scene

Last night, I attended the Palio di Legnano. This year carried a particular weight: 850 years since the Battle of Legnano, fought in 1176, when the cities of the Lombard League defeated the army of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. The battle became a symbol of civic autonomy, alliance, and the ability of different communities to stand together when something larger than their local rivalries was at stake.

That historical layer matters because what I saw was not only a horse race. It was a living study in power, discipline, tactical intelligence, and the fragile conditions that allow collective action to begin.

The Palio is run in three turns by eight riders, each representing one of the city districts. In Italian, the rider is the fantino: not merely a jockey, but the visible bearer of a community's pride, pressure, hopes, and old rivalries. The race itself is spectacular: fast, raw, physical, and emotionally charged. Yet, as an outside observer, I discovered that the most revealing part was not the race. It was everything that had to happen before the race could start.

Four riders enter the starting area for a turn. They must bring their horses behind the canapo - the starting rope - in the order assigned. When the horses are sufficiently aligned, facing the track, the mossiere - the official responsible for managing the start and judging its validity - can give the signal (la mossa). This sounds like a technical procedure, pretty straightforward to follow. From the stands, it looks like a negotiation with muscle, instinct, nerves, and ambition.

The fantini move, turn, pull back, advance, cross angles, test space, and sometimes seem to disturb the rhythm of the others. What looks like disorder from the outside is not pure disorder. It is a tactical battle around the conditions of departure. They are not only preparing to run. They are trying to shape the race before the race begins.

The mossiere calls, waits, corrects, interrupts, restarts the process, and finally gives the start. His authority is real. Yet his authority pales in the face of the tactical intelligence of the riders. The latter still test the margins, protect advantage, influence each other's horses, strike agreements against the order and do the utmost to enter the first turn in the most favourable condition for themselves. This is why the start can take far longer than an outsider expects. What you think will last ten minutes can stretch well into ... hours.

And this is where the Palio stopped being folklore for me and became a management scene.

The race before the race

I have seen this before in senior management teams. Of course, not with horses, not behind a rope, and not under the noise of a stadium; but in those moments when an important decision has already been discussed, partially agreed, politically negotiated, emotionally resisted, and supposedly prepared for execution.

Everyone says they want the race to start. Yet when the moment comes, each leader tries to improve his or her own starting condition. Someone reopens a closed point. Someone delays with one more request for clarity. Someone occupies space that does not belong to them. Someone quietly protects a budget, a function, a future excuse, or a local advantage. Someone speaks about alignment while making alignment harder.

The organisation waits. The market does not. Neither the clients nor the competitors. Not even the energy available. And when the leadership team remains too long behind its own canapo, people in the organisation begin to interpret the delay. At first, they are patient. Then they become confused. Then tired. Then sarcastic. Ultimately, cynical.

One detail fascinated me most during the second turn. One rider had the most disadvantaged starting position, on the outside of the curve. He had no visible privilege in the starting order. Yet he seemed the most prepared. His horse stood alert: not passive nor reactive, ready but not nervous. The rider noticed the games around him, but he did not become absorbed by them. At times, he reacted just enough to show he understood the arena. Most of the time, he stayed contained.

Each false start proved the same thing. His horse exploded forward immediately. He was already listening to the moment before the moment became obvious to everyone else. He did not win the pre-start by creating more movement. He won it by remaining present and connected to what mattered.

After so many long attempts to create alignment, when the real start finally came, I almost did not trust it. For a fraction of a second, one of the most disruptive riders seemed to hesitate, as if the very game he had helped prolong had made him less ready for the moment it was meant to prepare.

The disciplined rider did not hesitate.

Despite starting from a disadvantaged outside position, by the first lap, he was already leading. From there, he did not simply run; he managed the race. He checked the distance behind him, regulated the horse’s speed, and seemed careful not to spend more energy than necessary.

He was far enough ahead to prove he could dominate, yet he did not give the impression of giving everything. That was the interesting part. He knew the final race was still ahead, and winning this heat badly — with an exhausted horse — could cost him the victory that mattered more.

Seven leadership lessons from the starting rope

1. Alignment is not agreement

At the starting line, all riders appear to share the same objective: start the race. Their behaviour tells a more complex story. The same happens at the top of organisations. Around the table, leaders can agree on direction. In execution, their behaviour may still reveal competing agendas. Agreement is what people say when the discussion ends. Alignment is what their behaviour proves when pressure begins.

2. The start exposes the real operating system

Before the race, the fantini reveal themselves. Who delays? Who provokes? Who tests authority? Who stays ready? In executive teams, the interval between “we agreed” and “we act” is one of the most honest diagnostic spaces. It shows the team's real operating system: trust, discipline, courage, avoidance, and hidden rivalries.

3. Authority must protect the conditions for action

The mossiere carries formal authority, but formal authority alone does not neutralise skilled tactical behaviour. This is very familiar in organisations. Senior authority does not need to control every move. It does need to hold the frame strongly enough for action to begin. When boundaries remain too elastic, manipulation starts to look like strategy, and delay starts to look like prudence.

4. Some leaders confuse positioning with leadership

At the canapo, a better angle, a better rhythm, or a fraction of momentum can matter. Positioning is legitimate. Obstruction is not. In management teams, leaders must also position their functions, risks, and resources. The problem begins when the preparation for the race consumes more value than the race can create.

5. Readiness beats agitation

Some leaders create a lot of movement around themselves and call it engagement. They speak, challenge, reopen, reposition, and make sure their presence is constantly felt. Yet when the real start comes, they are tired, distracted, or slightly late. Readiness is quieter. It is disciplined attention without passivity.

6. You can understand politics without becoming contaminated by it

The rider who impressed me was not naive. He read the field. He understood the games. But he did not multiply the disorder. This is a rare executive quality: to see the politics without becoming political in the smallest sense of the word; to understand the arena without losing one's own centre.

7. Winning the first turn is not the same as winning the Palio

Once in front, the rider did not seem obsessed with proving dominance every second. He measured distance, regulated speed, and protected the horse. Many leaders win the first visible battle and lose the larger campaign because they spend everything too early: credibility, emotional energy, team trust, political capital, and personal stamina. The better question is not only “Can we win this round?” but “What condition do we need to be in after this round?”

The executive starting line

The Battle of Legnano is remembered because rival cities managed, at a decisive moment, to stand together around something larger than themselves. The Palio keeps that memory alive through pride, rivalry, ritual, and competition. That tension is precisely why it speaks so well to leadership.

Strong players do not automatically create a strong team. Sometimes they create a crowded starting line where everyone wants movement, but no one wants to give up the last inch of advantage. The question is not whether ambition exists. Of course it does. The question is whether ambition serves the race or only the starting position.

Senior management teams rarely fail because they cannot run. More often, they fail because they cannot start cleanly. They confuse alignment with choreography, patience with tolerance, political intelligence with obstruction, and movement with readiness.

Meanwhile, the organisation watches from the stands. It notices who delays, who disturbs, who protects the frame, who stays ready, and who still has energy when the real start finally comes.

That may be the least romantic and most useful lesson of the Palio. Before speed, there is readiness. Before execution, there is the discipline of the start. Before leadership becomes visible in the race, it has already been tested "behind the starting rope".

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If your senior team spends too much energy around the starting line — revisiting decisions, protecting territories, delaying execution, or confusing alignment with polite agreement — the issue may not be strategy.

It may be the way the team aligns for the "start".

Team coaching creates the space where senior leaders can see the invisible dynamics that slow them down: power games, unclear authority, silent resistance, competing priorities, and the small tactical moves that quietly weaken collective execution.

The goal is not to make strong leaders softer. The goal is to help strong leaders move together without losing clarity, courage, or accountability.

If your senior management team is preparing for a strategic transition, a new phase of growth, or a decision that requires real collective ownership, this may be the right moment to work on the quality of the alignment behind that start.

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