you have and allowing your intuition to guide you down the path to success.
Leaders have long been selected for roles and responsibility due to their intelligence and keen ability to connect with others thanks to strong social and emotional skills. Together with data, hard evidence, logic and rational analysis, these are most often the guides senior leadership uses to make decisions on a daily, even hourly, basis. Fewer people use their gut as a final decision maker. What if we told you, though, that trusting your gut is at the center of recent neuroscience advancements?
Intuitive intelligence, as it’s called, is something you may have already tapped into in moments of crisis or high-speed change. It’s essentially gathering large amounts of information and context to make a decision and then moving forward to implement it with fierce resolve. Let’s back up, though, and let the experts define intuitive intelligence. An article from the Oxford Leadership Academy explains it this way:
“Many people may feel that intuition has little or no place in business, and that decisions should be based on empirical evidence rather than on trusting your gut feeling. But there is increasing evidence that intuition is more than merely a feeling.
Many scientists now believe that it is, in fact, the result of our brains piecing together information and experiences to come to different, and less obvious, solutions and conclusions. Publications such as ‘Intelligent Memory: Improve the Memory That Makes You Smarter,’ by neuroscientist Barry Gordon, show that decision-making and intuition are inextricably linked.”
and existing thoughts that result in decision-making.
This basis for intuitive leadership, as the quote above mentions, is a new science of the mind known as intelligent memory. Intelligent memory is essentially the left, right, top, and bottom parts of your brain coming together to process information and make a decision. The example neuroscientist Barry Gordon uses in his book is an elaborate closet organization system. “The brain,” he writes, “warehouses existing knowledge into separate files and, when new data is received, it searches the stored files looking for similar information. Upon finding a match, the new information is combined with the existing knowledge to create a fresh thought.”
What we have understood for years as “listening to your gut” is, in fact, a massive processing of information by our brains, piecing together old information with new ideas to create a new “aha!” moment. Perhaps the best news about intuitive leadership and your intuitive intelligence is they can be cultivated over time. In this video, Brian Bacon, President of the Oxford Leadership Academy, explains two important steps to cultivating your intuitive leadership skills: focusing on presence and then getting absolutely clear on your intention.
Presence of mind, he explains, has to do with pulling yourself back to see the whole picture of what’s going on. He describes it as getting off the dance floor and standing on the balcony to see the entire party and what’s really going on. The next step is then getting absolutely clear on your intention for the decision you are making.
experience will be for you as well as the employees.
A Forbes article from 2019 includes a few more tips for cultivating your intuitive leadership skills: slow down, listen to your inner voice, and trust your hunches more. Organizations benefit from this work, the article goes on to say, because solutions are created with a more holistic approach.
Like so many other habits, the more times you practice this way of decision making, the more the ability will develop and the more comfortable you will be trusting it. Perhaps Albert Einstein explained it best this way: “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
Here’s to tapping into our gift—and may we become even stronger leaders because of it.
If you would like to learn more about developing your intuitive leadership skills, The Change Agents are here to help. We specialize in executive coaching and tailoring practices to your specific interests and needs. To talk more about our approach and process, contact us at thechangeagents.us.