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If you are a new leader, your plate is full of responsibility and your to-do list with things to learn. Developing one skill will steer you through the new challenges and guide you to lead people well.

New leaders, develop your intuition.

Intuition is not voodoo. It is not magic. Intuition is not psychic ability.

Intuition is experience reapplied. Good detectives do it. Diagnostic physicians do it when when technology can’t. Very successful leaders do it.

Image by: Hexmar

If intuition is just experience, why call it intuition? Because it isn’t just experience.

Intuition is a synthesis of information and experience — especially about people — reapplied in a different time and space. Over time and with practice, the synthesis works so quickly that many people experience it as a hunch. In any case, this intuition delivers valuable foresight to a leader.


Steps to Develop Your Intuition

1. Become a student of human behavior. Observe & listen to them. Communicate with them.
2. Give yourself permission to see things as they are unencumbered with your fears, values, hopes, and personal agenda. Intuition comes from this. Like a detective, spot patterns and see exceptions to patterns. How they look when they are feeling certain things. How they behave in diverse situations when having those feelings.
3. Build your intuition data bank. Embrace this input as non-measurable data. It crosses over time and space. Gather it to store and reuse in the future for synthesis and reapplication.

Implications for Leaders

To broaden your vision, don’t micro-manage. It is difficult to see the forest if you are working on one tree.

Get to know those you work with as people. Get to know them sooner than later — your colleagues, your team, your vendors, your suppliers, and other teams that your organization will work with.

Learn about diverse people behavior and never stop learning. If you stop, your intuition data bank becomes incomplete and your intuition flawed.

Acting on intuition alone is a mistake. Use your newly developed intuition as a pointer for further investigation. It maximizes the value of your intuition and minimizes pattern error, stereotyping, and bad decisions.

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Consider Einstein’s view:”The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. I believe in intuition and inspiration. At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason.”


What benefits have you had from intuition? What do you do to develop it? I would love to hear your stories and perspective in the comments field below.


©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. For permission to re-post or republish, please email info@katenasser.com.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, has taught corporate leaders, managers, and their teams to develop foresight and intuition for success in customer service, sales, and teamwork. See this site for workshops and customers’ testimonials.

Posing questions to job candidates in interviews, no matter how behaviorally based, doesn’t show you what they will contribute.  Perhaps this is one reason temp-to-perm positions became so popular even with the buy-out fee the employer pays.  The employer has seen the temporary staff in action.

Yet you can achieve a similar success by engaging job candidates in action interviews.  If you are looking for candidates with 21^st century skills like creativity, conceptualizing, synthesis, re-invention, and true empathy/customer service, action interviews will get you there.  You can do them in-person or via videoconferencing.

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To find creative problem-solvers …

Hold a mock meeting on solving a generic problem.  Have the job candidate participate.  See if s/he offers out-of-the-box or safe ideas.  Does s/he contribute any ideas or simply listen?  You can assess the people-skills as well as creative problem solving. 

To spot empathetic staff for customer service …

Have your best customer service staff role play true-to-life scenarios with the job candidate.  Use blatant and subtle examples needing empathy and see what the job candidate responds.  It is one thing to discuss how you would handle a customer interaction and quite another to do it. 

To find synthesizers who can see new ideas in disparate details …

Pick a recent example that you solved through synthesis of different ideas. Give the different ideas to the job candidate and see how and what s/he synthesizes. 

To tap the pool of reinvention talent …

Give the candidate 2-3 everyday objects and ask them to make a new useful object out of them.  The useful object can be anything; it does not have to relate to work.  You are tapping innate abilities with this activity that you can later apply to work related challenges.

To find conceptualizers …

Have the team of interviewers and the job candidate play “What If We”.  You can use a hypothetical product or service that relates to your industry or customize it to relate to your organization’s products and service.   State the product or service in question.  Then each person states aloud “What If We …” to conceptualize a new angle or improvement.  This is also a great way to find out what the candidate knows about your industry and company.

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Remember: To find the best talent in the 21st century, engage candidates in action interviews.  Replace the bad surprises you get after hiring with happy surprises about job talent you find during action interviews. Combine them with resume/references and certain skill or interests tests where appropriate to get a fuller picture of the job candidate’s potential and interpersonal style.   

I welcome your comments, new ideas, and questions below. 

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach