What is Executive Intuition?
What is Executive Intuition?
“At times, you have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.”
“At times, you have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.” ― Alan Alda, American Actor, Screenwriter and Director
VIM Executive Coaching is many things, but we are not prophets. We are business coaches for executives and entrepreneurs. We can guide, counsel and provide a safe place for leaders to reflect, understand and meditate. However, we have no Tarot cards, crystal balls, Ouija boards, dice or tea leaves (though we do like tea).
We are great listeners, and quite often, our new clients are greatly relieved when they see how receptive we are to hearing you out. Often, the conversation begins with incite and realization:
“I should have known, I should have trusted myself, I should have believed what others said.”
Nevertheless, we do believe in intuition
Given what we said above, do we believe in the concept of intuition? Yes, we do, thanks for asking. There are numerous definitions for intuition, however we favor the version proposed by Psychology Today: “Often referred to as ‘gut feelings,’ intuition tends to arise holistically and quickly, without awareness of the underlying mental processing of information.”
Some intuitive processes are obvious; for example, intuitively, it’s fairly certain that crossing in front of an angry bull while wearing a red sweater is probably not a great idea. Instinctively, you probably know that. Another given in an intuition sense, could be an understanding that motoring through the snow and ice (or driving rain) with a bald set of tires will probably result in a bad slide and accident.
However, suppose we ratcheted the intuition business a few notches into the world of business. Would any of us feel comfortable joining an organization that has a history of financial trouble? Instinctively, would we welcome an organization that has a miserable history of workplace harassment, bullying, pollution or improper sales tactics? We would doubt it.
However, even more subtlety are those feelings we may have when something is not, quite right, something that cannot be named. In the moment, many executives instead of listening to themselves decide to override.
Trust yourself
We can give a hundred examples when executive leaders decided to throw-away intuition and ignore the obvious. In essence, they lose touch with themselves and pretend the problem or observation or unethical behavior is not there. The problem with ignoring issues or behaviors or even criminal activity, is that it becomes a message of improper toleration.
When executives acquiesce to the bias and indifference, they often get more tolerant of what they know to be wrong or unethical.
In reading this post, we are certain that some of you might recall situations in your respective workplaces where toleration of what was patently wrong (fill-in the blank), became a way of organizational life. In fact, so much so, that you may have doubted your own decent instincts.
Good people and good organizations turn bad when instinct is ignored. In quoting Alan Alda, it is sometimes necessary to leave the “city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition.” How is that journey taken? By being mindful.
Instincts are often borne of mindfulness. Mindfulness can help organizations bring about needed change. It is not always easy to mindfully push positive instincts especially in an organization that has grown complacent however, the rewards of such change are innumerable.
Mindfulness begins with trust, and such trust begins with ourselves. We admit that sometimes the journey can be painful but out of that pain there can be great recompence. As an executive, you can develop greater intuition. We provide the tools to help our clients achieve that goal.
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VIM Executive Coaching offers dynamic, highly effective coaching programs for executives and entrepreneurs. Our unique approach combines ancient wisdom and techniques with modern approaches. We would be happy to offer you a FREE, NO OBLIGATION coaching consultation! Please click on the link below.