Client: Why do people say, “you should listen to your intuition?”
Coach: Your intuition is your inner voice talking to you, telling you what it regards as the natural thing for you to do. When you follow your intuition you are doing what comes naturally to you. This will usually mean that you will deploy your greatest strengths when you follow your intuition.
Client: Does that mean that to be a good leader all I have to do is listen to my intuition?
Coach: Unfortunately not. The course that your intuition suggests as being best for you may not be best for your team. As a leader you always have to first consider your objectives. Then ask yourself, “will following the course suggested by my intuition achieve an outcome in line with my objectives?”
Client: In that case, why should I bother to listen to my intuition?
Coach: It is not a matter of whether you should or should not listen to your intuition, but rather how you feed your mind with good information and technique so that when your intuition speaks to you it speaks from a well educated and well informed database.
Client: That sounds like a lot of work to me.
Coach: Anything that is worth having is worth striving for. Even the most naturally talented athletes do not win Olympic gold without putting in a lot of hard miles of physical training and personal development.
Client: If I’m going to do all that, why should I bother with intuition, surely I can work out my answers logically?
Coach: When you work things out logically it takes longer to reach a point of view and your conclusions my not reflect enough of yourself. Also your conclusions may not be in tune with the feelings of your team. If your team do not feel good about your suggestions they will not adopt them willingly.
Client: Surely that is just a matter of adjusting my suggestions to take into account the feelings of the team?
Coach: What you suggest sounds logical, but it doesn’t work like that in practice. You have to develop a natural affinity or empathy with your team. You have to really understand how they feel. Their feelings are there to be manipulated whenever you feel the need.
You may have seen sports teams when they are not in tune with their coach or manager. There is an atmosphere that can be cut with a knife. You can bet that the manager or coach is trying every trick in the book to connect with the team, but once he’s lost that connection the results will deteriorate.
The same challenge faces the leader in a business situation. There has to be a natural connection between the leader and the team. That is an intuitive conncection. Certainly you can educate your intuition, but, if you want to get the best results, it must be a natural connection. That is why intuition is important.
Client: How can I feed my intuition?
Coach: I love it when you ask intelligent questions – by working with a good leadership coach of course.
Best wishes,
