The best leaders harness the power of intuition - and it helps them make smarter and faster decisions
- Hortense le Gentil is an executive leadership coach who works with decision makers in the business world, including many C-suite executives from Fortune 500 companies.
- The following is an excerpt from her book, "Aligned: Connecting Your True Self with the Leader You're Meant to Be."
- In it, she says that leaders should make aligned decisions - decisions that take into account both their identity and values and professional vision.
- Intuition is a powerful tool in making these types of decisions. It's speedy and takes into consideration complexity. It can be an ideal complement to rational decision making.
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How do you know that you're making the right decision? What is that little voice in your head telling you what to do (or not do)? How important is that voice in your journey to better alignment?
Alignment is the congruence of who you are, what you feel, and what you love on a deep and fundamental level with what you do, what you say, what you envision, and where you are going.
Leaders have to rely on intuition to make better, more aligned decisions when facing complicated challenges. Why? Because analysis and reason, while highly useful, have their own limitations. They rely on existing knowledge, linear processes, and what can be measured. The future, however, is made of that which we cannot yet be certain. Information is imperfect and incomplete - or overwhelming. Intuition, on the other hand, is about lightning speed, lateral connections, and complexity, which turn out to be very useful when making complicated decisions.
First, speed. Rational, linear, and conscious reasoning has been shown to be far slower than intuition. In prehistoric times, intuition and instinct were essential to our survival. Escaping saber-toothed tigers required a sixth sense for danger and speedy decisions There was no time to collect data, analyze, or consider pros and cons, which is what our prefrontal cortex does. This is why our rational selves cannot at first make sense of our intuitive insights, which often then get discarded.
Now, complexity. Conventional wisdom favors careful, conscious deliberation when making important decisions, but in complex situations, conscious deliberation often leads to poor decisions. Our conscious mind can process a far more limited amount of information than our intuitive mind. Furthermore, our conscious reasoning turns out to be rather poor at correctly weighing various factors that it takes into consideration. In other words, the importance of some considerations gets overinflated, while others get inaccurately minimized. This produces a misalignment, resulting in decisions we come to regret or that do not quite match our priorities and values. Scientific experiments have confirmed that while conscious deliberation produces better outcomes for simple choices, complex decisions involving multiple factors are better served by subconscious deliberation while one's attention is directed elsewhere - taking a mental step back and letting the intuitive mind do the heavy lifting.
Intuition also feeds into emotional intelligence, also known as EQ, which, alongside the ability to make decisions, is an essential leadership quality. Developed by Daniel Goleman, the concept refers to "a set of skills, including control of one's impulses, self-motivation, empathy, and social competence in interpersonal relationships." A very successful CEO told me that he wished he'd known much earlier in his career that when it comes to leadership, EQ is far more important than IQ. The ability to recognize and process one's emotions, as well as others', taps more into your intuitive abilities than your analytical ones. Within a fraction of a second, your brain is able to read thousands of micro expressions in someone else's face, body language, or even mood without being aware of it.
I am not advocating that you ignore your analytical, rational mind. Slower but far more nuanced, precise, and sophisticated, it houses memories and values, and it is much better able to follow rules. Exploring and embracing complexity, considering different angles, and collecting data before relying on intuition for a decision helps to avoid oversimplifications.
We need both our analytical and intuitive minds. My suggestion is that you balance the scales between the lightning-fast, profound, and creative insights that can come only from your intuition and the higher functions of your conscious intelligence. Recognize when your intuition is speaking to you, and listen. Leaders able to rely on both analytics and intuition make better, more aligned decisions, and they are far more agile in the face of change.
More than ever, leaders must be nimble, anticipate changes, adjust, and embrace their responsibilities not only toward people within their organization but also suppliers, customers, and the communities in which they operate. This requires continuously aligning and realigning with themselves and with the world around them. Marshall Goldsmith points out that in order to be successful in tomorrow's world, leaders have to embrace global thinking and cross-cultural diversity, understand rapidly changing technology and its impact, rely far more on alliances and partnerships than in the past, and be facilitators rather than experts. All of this requires agility, speed, and foresight. In this context, the ability to find and maintain alignment within oneself and with others becomes even more crucial - and also challenging.
Alignment remains a work in progress as we keep growing, learning, and stretching our own limits. But it does not feel like work because this is a most fulfilling quest. Once you've tasted the gift of alignment and the endless possibilities that come with it, you won't want to lead - or live your life - without it.
What better gift can you give yourself and the world than being your best you?
Hortense le Gentil is a Marshall Goldsmith #MG100 Certified global leadership coach and author of the new book, "Aligned: Connecting Your True Self with the Leader You're Meant to Be."