intuitive side of leadership, The

Journal for Quality and Participation, The, Sep 1997 by Molinari, Margaret

Businesses emphasize getting the practical details right We have little patience with people who see the whole picture, yet can't get the facts right We devalue those abilities and in the process lose sight of the forest as we debate the trees.

It is not that it is bad to know the details of a particular situation, it is only that the details by themselves, even when lined up side by side, do not give a full picture. Something else is needed. Something more.

Our language has many words for describing detail. We accept information from our five senses as real, assured that what we smell, hear, taste, touch and see actually reflects what exists. The process of developing a management leader hones these abilities through exercise and experience. We choose people who are reliable in reporting facts. We trust them.

We have few words or concepts to describe the intuitive senses and generally dismiss these insights as lucky guesses or happenstance, or more interestingly, ascribe them to lesser places of status, as in the case of "women's intuition." We are uncomfortable with their more abstract and less predictable basis, holding that unless you can prove something through five sense data, it isn't real. We have limited our reality to a narrow band of occurrences and dismiss everything else from the mainstream of acceptance.

Yet both types of knowing, and their synergy with each other, are the building blocks of soul. Angeles Arien points out that, "If the instinctual or intuitive nature is separated from our human nature, the separation contributes to soul loss and mistrust of our intuitive nature." There are many examples in our ordinary lives.

Exercise can be purely physical gruntwork or the peak, flow experience of the dedicated athlete. Work can be putting in your eight hours or the opportunity to create something new and exciting.

It requires using our entire set of capabilities - Spiritweaving within ourselves requires the acceptance of our entire set of capabilities, including the senses that are customarily used and culturally acceptable, and those that are more subtle and experienced as less precise. For those of us who are rooted in the concrete, here and now detail, it means accepting a playful attitude to explore what is possible. The intuitive can be nurtured and developed.

Many in business are familiar with the MyersBriggs Type Indicator. It measures a person's preferences in a number of areas including how one takes in the information around them. It can tell you if you prefer the concrete detail of five sense data or the big picture and overall view of intuitive data. It does not tell you if you are skilled at taking in information through your preference or if you have developed the ability to take in information through your preference or if you have developed the ability to take in information through your non-preference mode. Somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of the general population prefer five sense data to intuitive data. Clearly our culture has a bias in this direction.

How can we develop our intuitive sides?

The first step is to discuss and name them with as much seriousness as we do with our five sense approaches. Here are some examples of intuitive skills and their application to the workplace.

Empathy: deep sensing and listening to hear what another is saying - This would include hearing what the customer intends, not only what he or she says she wants. This capability is particularly helpful in cross-cultural situations where people have to rely less on language and more on the ability to intuit the reaction of someone whose background and assumptions are completely different from our own. Oleg Vihanski, dean of the Business School at Moscow State University, has set up a program for Japanese and Korean businessmen to spend nine months in Moscow learning Russian and, more importantly, Russian culture. He says that the subtle understandings are making an inroad in the historical distrust and fear between Russians and the Japanese.

Putting yourself in another's place and feeling what they feel, experiencing what they are experiencing - When we use this sense we can tap into what colleagues are facing with the stresses of a new product launch or a program introduction and offer help and support from our function. As we walk through a workplace, we can take the time to deeply know what is occurring, beyond the obvious piece count or the latest quality issue. Experienced supervisors will tell you that they can "feel" how a day is going. When asked what that means, they can't describe it much more precisely. They are rarely wrong, though.

Taking on the energy or emotion of a person or a group and feeling it deeply even though it is not your reaction - As a leader, we can be open to stray emotions or thoughts that come our way. They are often rooted in some actual experience and may be helpful in understanding what is occurring to others. This skill would encourage someone to take the time to test these insights to see if they are based in people's reality.