In today’s fast-paced business environment, leaders must often make swift decisions. Data and strategic planning play essential roles, yet there is another powerful tool that seasoned leaders rely on: intuition.
Often described as a “gut feel”, intuition allows leaders to make impactful choices, particularly when facing incomplete data or time constraints. Such valuable intuition can benefit significantly from guidance. This is where a business mentor or coach can be transformative, offering insights and experience to develop and refine intuitive decision-making and acting as a sounding board.
Understanding Intuition in Leadership
Intuition can feel abstract, as it’s an instinctual sense that a decision “feels right” even if the data is not fully supportive. This sensation does not arise from guesswork, but is grounded in accumulated experience.
Over time, leaders unconsciously develop insights from patterns, past lessons and nuanced situations. When nurtured correctly, intuition guides leaders toward innovative and bold choices. However, to maximise its impact, intuition needs structured development, which business mentoring can provide. Business mentors and coaches also have complimentary experiences to draw on from their experience and can add to the consideration of intuitive conclusions.
How Business Mentors Can Help Leaders Harness Their Intuition
A business mentor’s value lies in their ability to challenge, refine and focus a leader’s intuition.
Here’s how business mentors can support this journey:
1. Providing a Safe Space for Reflection
A business mentor acts as a sounding board for intuition-driven decisions, especially those that may feel unconventional. Through open dialogue, business mentors encourage leaders to verbalise their instincts and gain clarity. This process refines intuition while building confidence, helping leaders trust their insights more deeply.
2. Fostering Reflective Practices
Learning from past choices is essential for honing intuition. A business mentor can help leaders develop reflective habits, encouraging them to analyse successful and unsuccessful decisions. This practice helps identify patterns, enhancing intuitive insights and allowing leaders to build a personal playbook for future choices.
3. Balancing Intuition with Evidence
While intuition is a valuable tool, it must be balanced with data. A business mentor teaches leaders when to lean into their intuition and when to validate it with facts. This skill helps leaders make more balanced decisions, blending instinct with a solid grounding in data.
4. Instilling Patience & Perspective
Intuition should not drive hasty decisions. Business mentorsemphasise the importance of patience, guiding leaders to allow time for their instincts to evolve alongside a clearer understanding of the situation. This “strategic patience” aligns impulsive feelings with a well-rounded perspective, improving decision quality.
5. Offering Objectivity
Sometimes, what feels like intuition may be influenced by unrecognised biases. A business mentor’s external perspective can help identify these instances, ensuring that intuition remains clear and unbiased.
Real-World Examples
Many renowned leaders attribute major successes to a combination of intuition and guidance:
1. Steve Jobs relied heavily on his instincts to drive Apple’s vision, yet he also had trusted advisors, such as Mike Markkula, who helped shape his ideas and challenge his approach.
2. Bill Gates was mentored by Warren Buffet, who mentored him on philanthropy, financial discipline and long-term thinking.
3. Richard Branson was mentored by Freddie Laker, who helped him understand the competitive airline landscape.
4. Oprah Winfrey credits her intuitive abilities for many of her business decisions, with mentors such as Maya Angelou helping with managing fame, staying grounded, and approaching challenges with wisdom and resilience.
5. Howard Schultz (Starbucks) was mentored by Leonard Riggio, founder of Barns and Noble, with advice on customer experience and expanding business in ways to maintain quality and values.
Tips for Cultivating Intuition
While business mentoring is invaluable, leaders can take additional steps to develop their intuition:
1. Trust Your Instincts on Small Decisions First – Start with low-stakes choices. This builds confidence and hones the skill of listening to intuition.
2. Develop Emotional Intelligence or EQ – Emotional awareness helps leaders distinguish intuition from emotional reactions. Knowing the difference reduces clouded judgment.
3. Stay Curious – Continuously learning and exploring new areas fuels intuition. Leaders who remain curious gain deeper insights, which in turn enriches their intuitive skills.
4. Practice Mindfulness – Techniques like meditation promote self-awareness and calmness, enhancing intuitive clarity and reducing the risk of reactive decisions.
Conclusion
Intuition is a powerful asset for business leaders, but like any skill, it grows stronger with guidance. A business mentor or coach can provide the structure and support to transform raw instinct into refined intuition, equipping leaders to navigate complex situations with confidence.
