Leader Intuition

A good number of our blog posts challenge leaders to rely on empirical evidence as part of their decision-making process and I stand behind that approach. However, there are times when leaders need to just trust their gut.

For instance, I was recently in a small group session with several athletic and military leaders where one of the participants, a seasoned Ranger, shared a personal experience that illustrates this point.

As the story goes, his unit was conducting a raid in a territory that was actively hostile. They anticipated encountering some heavy action that night. However, when they arrived at their target it was eerily quiet. As they entered an empty warehouse this Ranger started to feel uncomfortable — something didn’t feel right. He explained, there was this inner tension between not wanting to be the guy that was spooked by shadows in the dark versus trusting his intuition and having his guys get out of the current location. As his unit was getting ready to open a door to enter the next room, he ordered his team to “stand down”. It ended up being the right call because on the other side of the door was a tripwire designed to detonate explosives planted underneath the floor that would have certainly killed everyone in his unit.

He shared, “I had to overcome my pride and trust my gut — even if it meant being teased by my peers if I got it wrong.”

There will be times, as a leader, where you will find yourself in conflict between following the inner voice to do what you feel is best and the external pressure to do what is expected or what logic mandates. As a coach, this may be recruiting a five-star “game-changing” athlete when your gut tells you they are going to be a problem or knowing you should sit your starter out this weekend for disciplinary reasons even though if it may cost you the game and possibly your job. Whatever the case may be — as the leader of your team you are required to make tough decisions (sometimes unpopular ones) and, at times, you will need to rely on your inner voice; that leader intuition.

Let me offer three recommendations that may help you know when to trust that inner voice:

• Clearly define what it is that you value. When you find yourself with tough decisions or ambiguous situations it is important to have a set of core values that you can count on to guide you through it. When you have taken the time to deeply understand what it is that you value most your inner voice will whisper these values to you when you need them the most.
• Recognize when you are the “expert” and trust the data or others when you are not. There is a saying, “Be smart enough to know when you are stupid.” This rule applies here. If you find yourself in uncertain territory or there are others in the room that have more experience than you then in these moments don’t trust your gut. Your responsibility is to know when those moments exist and do not allow your pride to get in the way.
• Continually test that inner voice in situations where the consequences are less severe. If you repeatedly listen to that inner voice it will get louder but if you ignore it then it will quit talking to you.

As leaders, it’s important for us to listen to that inner voice and then have the wisdom to know when to act on it even when we don’t have the data to necessarily back what we feel is right or wrong. In the words of Kenny Rogers, “You gotta know when to hold them and know when to walk away” — your team is counting on you!