Using Your Intuitive Skills

Checklist for Evaluating Your Intuition 

Here are some steps for using and evaluating your intuition whenever a hard decision is forthcoming:

1.    Write down the key issue or issues being faced.

2.   List the major benefits expected from a right decision and the major consequences probable if the decision is wrong.

3.   Identify as many options as possible.

4.   Analyze and review each option separately, listing the pros, cons and costs of each.

5.   Eliminate the options that appear too risky or have consequences beyond the organization's tolerance level.

6.   Discuss and obtain feedback of the remaining options from people whose judgment and wisdom you respect, both from within and outside the organization.  

7.    Do an internal intuition check by asking yourself:

a) all else being equal, which option would I choose? Why?

b) what motivates you to pick one option over another?

c)  what is the worst thing that can happen from a wrong decision?

d) how will you know if the decision is wrong? Would you be able to change course or direction if this occurs?

e) can you look those you respect in the eyes and honesty say, "I feel right about this decision"?

8.   Make your decision. If this is a team decision, present your findings and recommendations to the team.

9.   Make it work. But be willing to change course or direction if the results being generated do not live up to expectations.

Of course, in question 7a above, all is not going to be equal. Part of your implementation plan, therefore needs to make your preferred option as close to equal, or better than equal, to any of the other options. 

This article is partially excerpted from our top-ranked personal development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, which is available in Kindle and paperback formats at Amazon. 

Use Your Intuitive Instincts

Your Intuition Can Be A Leadership Advantage 

Numerous surveys have revealed that one of the key factors in helping successful organizational leaders make tough decisions is their ability to trust their intuitive instincts.

This is not surprising, for intuitive people tend to be efficient at gathering sufficient information to put them at ease when making decisions. It appears that they are also able to quickly assess and analyze such information and integrate it with their personal accumulation of experience, knowledge, understanding, and insights to produce worthy decisions.

Although intuitive skills appear more natural and stronger in some leaders, it is also a skill that can be learned and honed over time. But only for those who can let go of a total reliance on logic, evidentiary data and number crunching. 

As acclaimed journalist and author Roy Rowan notes, "This feeling, this little whisper from deep inside your brain may contain far more information, both facts and impressions, than you are likely to obtain from hours of analysis."

The feeling that Rowan describes is often referred to as one's gut instincts or heartfelt (non-rational) feelings. 

Outside observers might interpret intuitive decisions as rash impulses, but in reality they are a blend of powerful intuition, insights and understanding developed from prior experiences, and clear-headed logic. The stronger the feelings, and the better the person's track record from previous intuitive decisions, the greater are the odds that the intuitive decision is the best one.

A word of caution though. While leaning on your intuition can be a leadership advantage, it can also be a leadership weakness if relied upon to the exclusion of hard-core data and the recommendations and intuition of your leadership colleagues. 

This article is partially excerpted from our top-ranked personal development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, which is available in Kindle and paperback formats at Amazon.