How do you develop your intuition as a leader?

Intuition is a valuable tool for leaders. It can serve as a compass when navigating challenging circumstances, fostering trust among team members, and unlocking innovative solutions. It complements conscious reasoning, enhancing decision-making in diverse scenarios.

With knowledge and experience, certain patterns and approaches to problem solving and situation analysis are created. Therefore for a leader to develop intuition, they must continuously expose themselves to first knowledge then secondly experience. The knowledge and experience must be dynamic not only one dimensional

Leaders often have to make decisions before they have all the information they would like to have. In these situations they need to rely on their 'gut' or intuition. The constraint of time just doesn't always allow you to see the whole picture so relying on your intuition is important.

As leaders, we make hundreds of decisions a day. Most of them don’t feel like decisions because they have become natural, and thus may be considered by some as intuition. But at one point, they were actual decisions. Every time we make a decision, we gain confidence about our decision-making abilities.

I agree, and "going with your gut" really comes into play when there is no clear or apparent "right" answer despite our experience and knowledge. This is one of many challenges in being a leader.

Intuition is the ability to make a decision or judgment without relying solely on extensive data analysis. It involves recognizing patterns and trends. It can be improved by training ourselves to focus on subtle cues and patterns and develop our mindfulness skills. This can be achieved through practices such as meditation or self-reflection

We develop these skills through practice, which leads to confidence. One thing we learn along the way, as leaders, is that not making a decision is still making a decision - the decision to do nothing. While there are so many meaningful quotes around decision-making, this one by Theodore Roosevelt is impactful. “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”

We develop intuition though a combination of talent, analysis and data. Through careful application and prediction, we move cautiously to results. If we error, we fail forward.

The best way to develop your intuition is to learn how to listen. As a leader you have to rely on the people around you. The only way to rely on your team is to listen to them.

Practice, practice, practice. Intuition & gut instincts rely on you trusting yourself. Reflection on when you've made decisions utilizing these instincts & the results compared to when you didn't trust your instincts can help build & strengthen internal trust.

Don’t forget the value of collaboration and open feedback. This is not to be taken personally, just as tools to refine. Grow, learn and engage with and from other peers, superiors and reports.

What does the data say? Does it make sense? What biases might be clouding my vision? Critical thinking is essential to refining the intuition, and I am a big fan of frameworks. They provide questions that help us check if our assumptions and conclusions are valid. I also like to present the ideas to others and ask them: Does this make sense to you? Any loopholes?

Using logic to validate and refine intuition is a bit like balancing your gut feelings with a dose of rational thinking. Here's how I personally approach it: 1. Gather Data: I like to gather facts and information from different sources. It helps me have a more solid foundation for my decisions. This could be from research, surveys, or just collecting relevant data. 2. Embrace Diversity: I actively seek input from various people with diverse perspectives. It's like having different puzzle pieces that can help me see the bigger picture and avoid blind spots. 3. Consider Alternatives: I make it a point to explore different scenarios and solutions. This keeps me flexible and adaptable, which is crucial as circumstances change.

Using thinking-based models like SWOT is actually the opposite of using your intuition. Often, the best path forward is not the one that 'rational' data is pointing you towards. Having said that, the way to avoid catastrophic choices that fly in the face of the data is to keep an open mind. If you are going to rely on your gut instinct you also need to avoid getting married to your decisions when they turn out to be wrong.

"WHAT COULD GO WRONG?" Being intentional about conducting pre-mortems is a great tool to foster a culture of constructive conflict. This is critical as many individuals are not comfortable giving or receiving feedback. By integrating opportunities where individuals are rewarded for poking holes in a decision, leaders buffer themselves against oversight and develop their teams to think about upstream and downstream impacts a decision could potentially make to processes within the business. Driving at efficiencies within departmental and functional silos can create unintentional constraints for the business and ultimately the bottom-line. THE GOAL by Eliyahu Goldratt is a great book to learn more about the THEORY OF CONSTRAINTS.

Balancing intuition and logic can be a bit tricky. For me, it is a matter of the right moment. I assume that intuition is the instant access to what we know, without the participation of consciousness. It's based on previous experiences and learning, stored in memory, serving as an “intuitive knowledge base.” Therefore, when I have time, I load everything I can into my knowledge base. I'm an obsessive learner. I talk to people, read, study, listen to podcasts, participate in webinars. I've even replaced Netflix series with successive episodes of the never-ending TED series. And when a decision needs to be fast – I trust my knowledge-fed intuition. And then I still check if I was right, so that I can trust it even more in the future.

Balancing intuition and logic in leadership is like having a toolbox with different tools for different jobs. Here's how I personally approach it: 1. Trust My Gut: In situations that require quick decisions or rely on creativity and inspiration, I lean on my intuition. It's like my compass guiding me when there's no time to overthink. 2. Back it up with Logic: When there's room for analysis and precision, I bring in logic. It's like my safety net, ensuring that my decisions are well-founded and justifiable. 3. Adapt to the Scenario: Every situation is unique. I adapt my approach based on what's needed. It's a bit like being a flexible leader who knows when to trust instincts and when to rely on hard data.

Como líder de RH, valorizar a intui??o é útil para decis?es ágeis, conex?o com a equipa, estímulo à criatividade e inspira??o. No entanto, deve-se ter cuidado, pois pode levar a decis?es precipitadas. é crucial equilibrar a intui??o com dados e análises para garantir decis?es informadas e bem-sucedidas. Ao entender os pontos fortes e limita??es da intui??o, os líderes de RH podem aproveitar ao máximo essa habilidade, promovendo um ambiente de trabalho positivo e alcan?ando os objetivos da organiza??o de forma eficaz.

Well, this is the million-dollar question, right? How do you mix reliance on data with intuition? My suggestion is that it can only happen over time. I don't see a short cut or hack for developing this skill. A leader will make many, many decisions in their career. Over time, if they develop the ability to listen, not get attached to specific outcomes of their choices, remain flexible and calm in the face of adversity, and be able to pivot from past decisions they will develop when the evidence clearly says they should, then they will develop a valuable sense of intuition.

I believe that our best decisions have both intuition and logic. Understanding the power and limits of each helps us not over rely on any. The more uncertainty in the scenario, the more intuition + testing is needed. The more predictable the scenario is, the more logic is needed. Experience helps fine tuning both, because we are exposed to more situations and may learn from them, detecting patterns and building wisdom. Insight emerges when we are able to connect the dots and, suddenly, things make sense!