Knowing Without Knowing: The Role of Intuition in Leadership

You walk into a house that is for sale and instantly know that it is right for your family.  A friend has a first date and tells you she has met the person she will marry and she is right.  How did you and your friend know?

Over the last few weeks, we’ve explored the role of thoughts and emotions in leadership and life, but there are many – Oprah, Einstein, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Colin Powell, Malcolm Gladwell -- who say that intuition is also an important part of good decisions and successful leadership.  Intuition is, according to Dale Myers, “the ability to aquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason.”  Intuition provides you with a way to gather information and make decisions that, when used correctly, supplements more objective data.  (Intuition can even be turned into a business, if it is particularly strong.)  To some, intuition can seem fanciful, or new age-y, but it is actually a scientific phenomenon that has been measured, studied, and located in the brain.

How do you recognize intuitive thinkers (other than by using your gut, that is)?  According to Dave Myers, some people are naturally wired to be intuitive and their traits include:

·         Using a limited set of analytical filters.  The more parameters you have for filtering information, the more complex your process will be but the less intuitive it will be. Intuition happens quickly.

·         Focusing on the big picture, instead of details. 

·         Being confident and focusing on the potential (as opposed to the risks) a decision.  Intuitive thinkers trust their instincts and don’t spend time worrying about the risks of their actions.  They are more interested in the potential of a situation.

·         Being good at instantly reading non-verbals, like body language.  This is the source of much of intuition: quick readings of information that is fleeting, like expressions.

Whether or not you fit these characteristics, how do you strengthen your intuition?

·         Use your intuition in areas you are experienced in. Intuition is better after you’ve had years of practice and experience in a particular area.  That knowledge gained through experience becomes unconscious and you are able to skip ahead to sound decisions.

·         Use specific techniques to improve intuition.  These include:

o   Journaling, which helps you see when your intuition was right in the past, thereby strengthening your confidence in it;

o   Engaging in creative activities more often, like painting or dancing, helps you access your non-analytical brain; and

o   Meditation or even siting in a quiet, still place for a few minutes helps you tune out distractions and focus on what your instinct is telling you. 

·         Practice using your intuition.  When waiting at a bank of elevators, try guessing which one will reach you first, or guessing who is calling on the phone before you pick up, and so on.  Try noting your first reaction to any given situation, such as guessing whether a waiter will provide good service before he speaks.  Then notice as time progresses whether you were correct. 

·         Understand its limits.  The problem with intuition – and why it should not be the sole source of information for major decisions – is that it is subject to our emotional states, as well as unconscious biases and prejudices, sometimes called “implicit associations.” (You can test yours here). We all carry these biases around unconsciously and intuition can tap into them against our will.  Intuition has great power.  Malcolm Gladwell notes two examples of this power in “Blink:  The Power of Thinking Without Thinking”:  Despite evidence in front of him, a firefighter instinctively tells his team to withdraw from a room seconds before the floor collapses, saving them from certain death in the fiery basement below.  On the other end of the spectrum, four police officers kill unarmed Amadou Diallo in New York City based on split-second gut reactions that he was a serial rapist suspect.  Not everyone will face life or death decisions, but the power of intuition should still be used wisely.

In the end, I believe Colin Powell gave the best advice on the use of intuition:  “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.”

When have you followed your intuition and it turned out to be right?  Has it ever steered you wrong?