Leadership intuition may appear a paradox at first. Leaders should trust their judgment, their experience, and cold hard data. There is no place for the gut feeling when it comes to deciding on a merger or reorganizing a branch office. However, the very experience, skill, and ability you have as a leader will stimulate the gut feeling to send you the correct signals.
On many occasions, HR managers, for instance, rely on gut feeling and perform a more thorough background check on a candidate with a 5-star resume and discover that they created a toxic environment in past workplaces. If they would not trust their instinct telling them that something is wrong, they would bring that toxic employee into the organization and destroy team morale.
What Exactly Is Leadership Intuition?
Now then, what exactly is this type of intuition that leaders should nurture? There is nothing unprofessional or debatable about it. Leadership intuition is simply experience you have gathered and which speaks to you in critical moments. It is the kind of skill that many professionals have, in various fields of work. Good doctors can diagnose an illness before the test results are back, or car mechanics can spot the problem from the noises coming from the car engine.
The same thing applies to leaders. Once they’ve learned to nurture their leadership intuition, they can identify low morale in their team before it becomes apparent or a customer’s dissatisfaction before they speak up or terminate the contract.
How Can You Nurture Your Leadership Intuition?
Here are a few things you should start doing to find, develop, and reach the point when you can trust your leadership intuition:
1. Become an Observer of Human Nature
Learning how people react, their mannerism, gestures, and various tones of voice is useful for leaders in various aspects of their work. It helps you understand the real train of thought of the other party during negotiations. Also, you can discipline your own non-verbal reactions to make your own thoughts less obvious to others.
In time, understanding human nature will trigger your leadership intuition. Whenever someone says something to you, but their attitude says something different, your intuition will prompt you to press them further until you obtain the truth or stop the discussion if it is pointless.
2. Do Not Be Biased by Your Personal Agenda and Values
You may believe that something is unacceptable on a personal level, such as leaving a company that trained you and helped you acquire experience. However, if your leadership intuition says that now is the right time to make a job offer to a competitor’s prized employee, do not hesitate. If the interests of your organization call for it, they supersede your personal beliefs.
3. Observe Behavioral Patterns and Act When You Note Inconsistencies
People are creatures of habit. They do various things in a specific manner and in a specific order. For instance, someone always starts their workday by going through the document tray while drinking coffee.
When you notice that they have changed their morning routine and you also note a decrease in the quality of their work, your leadership intuition should tell you that the person is undergoing problems, with their health or personal life.
How Can Leadership Intuition Make You a Better Leader?
And now let’s look at how leaders can benefit from trusting their inner voice. Some of the ways in which your leadership style will evolve:
1. You Will Stop Micromanaging People
Micromanagement is something many leaders are not aware that they are doing. They simply believe that they are helping their team work more efficiently. When you trust your leadership intuition, you will see the signs that your employees are annoyed and hampered by the way you hover above them as they do their work.
Also, you will learn to have more confidence in their skills and experience and give them the freedom to do the job they were hired for.
2. You Will Have More Courage to Make Decisions
How do great leaders make critical decisions that no one would have dared, but which pay off in a spectacular manner? A part of the answer is leadership intuition. They listened to their inner voice that, based on experience and skills, told them it is a good decision.
3. You Will Excel at Networking
When you use your leadership intuition, you become an expert at getting to know people and connecting with them. This will help you establish stronger relationships with your peers, superiors, suppliers, partners, and employees. And a large network of people you can rely on and who can rely on you is part of the definition of a great leader.
This article was originally published on pldx.org.
