The Law of Intuition Part 2

Jethro Evaluates-Exodus 18:1-24

Leadership intuition often separates the greatest leaders from the merely good ones. Some people are born with great leadership intuition; others have to work hard to develop and hone it. But however it evolves, the result is a combination of natural ability and learned skills. This informed intuition makes crucial issues jump out at the leader, enabling him or her to get a handle on intangible factors, understand them, and work with them to accomplish leadership goals.

Successful leaders see every situation in terms of available resources: money, raw materials, technology, and, most important, people. Intuitive leaders can since what’s happening among the people and almost instantly know their hopes, fears, and concerns. Leaders also have the ability to step back from what’s happening and see not only were they and their people have gone, but also where they are headed—as if they can smell change in the wind.

Everyone has some kind of intuition, especially in his or her area of natural giftedness. If your gift is mercy, then you can sense when someone needs comfort, and you know how to give it. If service is your gift, you instinctively know when and how to help those in need. And if you are naturally gifted at leadership, then you see everything with a leadership bias.

Moses was a good leader, not a natural one. When he met with Jethro, he hadn’t led Israel for long (the Hebrew nation had just left Egypt). But over those long years in the desert, Moses’ leadership improved—and so did his intuition.

Jethro, on the other hand, appears be a natural. How do we know that? Because he looked at a situation unlike anything he had ever seen—leading more than a million disgruntled, displaced ex-slaves—and knew exactly how to handle it. That’s intuition in action. Who he was determined what he saw, Jethro, the leader, saw everything with a leadership bias.

Of all the laws of leadership, the Law of Intuition is the most difficult to teach. Reading provides the best analogy for understanding intuition. Intuitive leaders “read” their people.

Join me next time for The Law of Intuition Part 3