Leadership is Intuitive: Recognizing Intuitive Leaders

Some leaders within your organization have great pattern recognition, wisdom, trend anticipation, personnel insight and confidence – while others do not. Those who display these attributes have the kind of intuition which you should rely on when it comes to successful decision making within your organization.

Top Five Signs for Recognizing Intuitive Leaders

Experience versus Luck

Author Douglas Adams writes that, "Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." Having a wealth of experience to draw from is a key factor in being an intuitive leader.

"Green" employees may come up with or luck into good decisions every now and then, but those individuals whose have experienced both successes and failures yet have made the most of both are an asset to your organization.

Wisdom versus Smarts

"Dig up all the information you can, then go with your instincts. We all have a certain intuition, and the older we get, the more we trust it… I use my intellect to inform my instinct. Then I use my instinct to test all this data," Colin Powell, former U.S. Army General and Secretary of State, explains in his book My American Journey.

You should not necessarily associate having intuition with being smart, but instead rely on those who exhibit wisdom in decision making. Do you trust the gut-reaction of the genius in your organization, or the individual whose choices have typically been informed ones, in which research and careful consideration was made? Being wise, rather than purely intelligent, helps guide intuition.

Second Gear versus Second-Guessing

Those who effectively display intuition routinely reach decisions quickly based on their assessment of a given situation. Once their instinct points in a particular direction, they confidently and immediately shift into second gear in order to move things forward.

Those who do not trust their intuition will have a tendency to over-analyze data, second-guess choices, change direction - and cause delay, slowing down progress.

Connection versus Detachment

Being in tune with those around you enables you to adequately understand personality types, read body language, anticipate how others react in certain situations, and determine how to best leverage strengths and weaknesses. An employee who is well connected with co-workers will likely be intuitive in making personnel decisions and managing projects with multiple team members.

They will also know their own limits and realize when it is best to rely on the talents, abilities and even intuition of others. Those who have a tendency to isolate themselves will be out of touch with not only their intuition and their co-workers, but with your organizational goals as well.

Awareness versus Inattentiveness

"The responsibility of a leader is to define reality," Max DePree asserts in Leadership is an Art. Being cognizant your organization’s ever-changing details will pay big dividends in fine-tuning intuition. Many employees narrow their focus on the minutia of their job descriptions, causing them to disregard the world around them.

The intuitive individual successfully fulfills his or her role, yet also has the ability to step back and survey the entire landscape of your organization. He or she knows what financial assets, technology, personnel, and other resources are available and not only recognizes but expects changing industry trends. This type of intuitive employee will have a knack for making the right choices in future company decisions.