What is intuitive leadership?
Intuitive Leadership is the trait of understanding how to evaluate a given situation quickly and making a firm decision to respond. Leaders are able to do this because they have the experience (through both education and practical situations) that has contributed to a stockpile of wisdom.
Intuition is made stronger by assessing each situation as it happens. It is also happens by having a strong sense of purpose, an obvious reason for why you are doing what you are doing.
Qualities of Intuitive Leader
How much have you developed the traits of intuitive leadership?
Vision
Do you have a picture of where you and your followers are going? Does this vision have an uplifting/noble aspect to it? Does it add something positive into the world?
Skill Development
Are you constantly working to improve your skills, both as a leader and in the area where you are trying to lead? Are you asking your followers to do things you would not be willing to do yourself?
Questioning
How many questions do you ask? Can you put aside the way things are expected to be done to see what would work best in the current situation?
Weak inner critic
Have you worked hard to lessen the volume of your self-criticism? Have you found a way to turn your personal weaknesses into assets? Do you work to help your followers have a stronger sense of self and intuition?
Pitfalls of intuitive leadership
Self-deception
When you rely on your own instincts to guide you, it is important that you are in tune with your true self. It is easy to let your own biases, lower desires and petty jealousies interfere with your higher intuitive wisdom. Make sure you are focused, and that your thoughts are in line with your values.
Excuses
Your inner voice may also try to make justifications to you as to why you should not stick to your purpose. Remember you know what is right. You have the backup of past experiences, and you can research things that are unclear. If you have developed negative patterns of laziness or carelessness, develop a strategy to correct these.
Closed World
Make sure you are getting feedback and information from multiple points of view. If your team members are all too similar in outlook, or too worried about their security in the group or organization, they will only tell you what they think you want to hear. You need all sides of a situation to make a proper intuitive decision.
Working towards intuitive decision making
You are a human being, not a machine. There are physical, mental and emotional limits that you must obey. Without correcting imbalances in your life, you will not be able to fully develop your higher leadership skills.
You must have confidence in yourself. Believe that your past life experiences will guide you. Trust that you can also research unknown information. Empower the people working with you to give their best and to contribute differing points of view.
Manage expectations of and on yourself. Is there an established way of doing things in your field? Are they strictly necessary to getting the job done? When in doubt about anything, ask yourself why you are doing something? Motivations that are based on the expectations of others are not higher purposes and will sabotage your efforts to grow as a leader.
What are your biggest challenges in becoming a more confident, inspiring leader?
Further Study
- Light, Michael (2017). Intuitive Leadership: how a CEO doubled profits and halved stress. Abundant Development, 232 pp. ISBN:978-1931074018
I find the article very interesting and instructive. There is not enough Body of Knowledge on the subject even though some work has been done. I will use the information obtained from the article, and will of course cite my source in my forthcoming book on Leadership . A very insightful article this is!