The Learned Becomes Intuition

Intuition is an incredible leadership asset that distinguishes truly visionary leaders from merely competent managers. The capacity to sense important patterns, make creative connections between seemingly disconnected ideas, or just have a “gut feel” about people and future trends is invaluable. But the problem is many think intuition is an innate trait - you either have that sixth sense or you don’t.

However, one of the keys to elevating our leadership is realizing that while some intuitive capacity may be innate, the vast majority of intuition is actually the result of key leadership capabilities we CAN develop. Specifically, intuition is built from the raw material of individual learning and experience over time. With practice, lessons become instinct. The more we intentionally push ourselves to learn, reflect, analyze data, observe human nature and understand culture, the stronger our intuition muscle becomes.

I frequently coach leaders that if they envy an entrepreneurial leader’s brilliant “knack” for launching killer products, a turnaround CEO’s keen sense of market threats no one else sees coming, a master salesperson’s gift for reading buyer needs, or a rockstar team builder’s eerie capacity to instantly size up talent, those capabilities likely didn’t appear from thin air. They reflect hours upon hours over years and even decades of deliberate skill building through study, practice, feedback and course correcting mistakes.

The entrepreneur has tested dozens of weak product hypotheses that failed before a successful launch. The turnaround CEO endured sleepless nights wrestling with multiple bankrupt bankruptcies earlier in their career learning warning signals. The master salesperson painfully tallied up cringe-worthy early fumbled sales calls without the words to empathize before an instinct emerged. And the rockstar talent spotter has stacks of old interview notes and team projects analyzing people, motivations, incentives and group dynamics to inform their intuition.

None of them started with brilliant innate intuition - they built it incrementally and iteratively. As leaders it’s empowering to recognize that means WE can build our intuition too through ongoing learning and skill development to expand our vision, insight and foresight.

But making intuition a habit requires structure and intent. In today’s cacophony of pinging smartphones, packed calendars and endless meetings, taking time for intentional learning all too easily falls by the wayside. To strengthen intuition we have to purposefully create space for it. Here are some ways to build “intuition muscles” by incorporating continuous learning into your leadership rhythm with more consistency:

Hold Regular Learner Meetings with yourself Block off recuring times for reading, online learning, blogs or podcasts just as you would other meetings. Listen while commuting. Process insights through journaling.

Attend conferences and events outside your niche Exposure to variety of contexts builds pattern recognition and connecting unlikely dots. Look for talks on behavioral economics, technology trends, constructing narratives and anything else sparking new neural pathways.

Interview trusted advisors Set up coffees, lunches or 15 minute phone chats to ask their advice on challenges you’re facing, lessons learned or views on industry unknowns. Hear them share critical thinking frameworks driving their decisions.

 

Deconstruct influential leaders’ trajectories; Study leaders you admire - how they got started, evolved, handled crises, generated ideas. Reverse engineer the experiences and capabilities building their intuition through books, online searches and asking your network about them.

Immerse in data, research and contrary opinions Gather empirical evidence informing issues you’re wrestling with from across the political and intellectual spectrum - surveys, academic studies, think tank positions. Absorb facts before developing an instinctual stance.

Reflect on lessons learned from wins and losses; After finishing projects do a “post mortem” analysis on what worked, what you’d change. Mine past experiences for how that informs judgments today. Learn from your future self by journaling key decisions and revisiting reasoning later.

Practice applying leadership principles outside work; Spot opportunities to test empathy, resolve conflicts, persuade cases, coach others or analyze incentives in your friendships, community groups and family relationships. See how leadership models hold up.

Turn information into insight through conversation; Dialogue, debate and discuss learnings, ideas and opposing angles with colleagues and collaborators to get critical feedback. Verbalization cements lessons and refines judgment.

Ultimately there are no shortcuts to cultivating intuition. Malcolm Gladwell popularized the notion that it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to master complex skills until they become second nature. Numerical precision aside, the underlying truth remains - intuition arises from immersing ourselves in active, reflective learning over significant time. But committing to that journey is infinitely rewarding. Our vision broadens. Our judgment deepens. Our creativity and foresight expands exponentially. Patterns emerge from seeming randomness and insights arise more instinctively over time. Until gradually, the once mysterious “knack” feels less magical and more the natural result of lessons becoming learned intuition.

So what will you learn this week to start building your leadership intuition? Remember the first step to demystifying innate talent in other leaders is recognizing our own untapped potential waiting below the surface. Then it just takes mining those lessons learned and applying them more instinctively moving forward through ongoing humble, hungry learning until they gradually hardwire into intuition themselves.