Leaders Evaluate Everything with a Leadership Bias
During the decade that I’ve spoken to audiences about the 21 Laws of Leadership, I’ve found that the Law of Intuition is the most difficult to teach. When I talk about it, natural leaders get it instantly, learned leaders get it eventually, and non-leaders just look at me blankly.
Leaders look at things differently than others do. They evaluate everything according to their leadership bias. They possess leadership intuition that informs everything they do. It is an inseparable part of who they are.
EVERYBODY IS INTUITIVE
Not all people are intuitive in the area of leadership, but every person possesses intuition. Why do I say that? Because people are intuitive in their area of strength. I’ll give you an example. Because I am a communicator and do a lot of public speaking, people occasionally want to hear from my wife, Margaret, and she receives an invitation to speak at an event. As the date approaches, Margaret works on her presentation and puts together her notes, but we inevitably end up having a conversation something like this:
“John, how do you think I should start?” she asks.
“It depends,” I answer.
“That’s not much help.”
“Margaret, I’m not trying to be difficult. Every speaking situation is different.”
“Okay, but what would you do?”
“Well, I’d go out and talk to many of the attendees before the event to try to get a feel for who they are—you know, just check out the room. And I’d listen to what the host said and to the people who spoke before me to get an idea if I should play off something they said or that happened earlier. I’d find a way to really connect with the audience.”
People are intuitive in their area of strength.
“That doesn’t help me,” she answers in frustration.
To be honest, her questions frustrate me as much as my answers frustrate her. I have a hard time explaining what I would do because communication is intuitive for me; it’s one of my greatest strengths.
TURNING THE TABLES
I’m not picking on Margaret. She is more highly talented than I am in so many areas. To give you an idea, when I’m getting ready to speak at an event and I’m trying to pick out my clothes, I’m worthless. One of two things usually happens: I stand in the closet, paralyzed and drooling, totally incapable of figuring out what goes together. Or I pick something out, put it on, go into the bedroom, and Margaret says, “Oh, John, you’re not going to wear that, are you?”
“Uh, I, uh, no, of course not,” I answer. “What do you think I should wear?”
At that, Margaret strolls into the closet and looks around for about two seconds. “I haven’t seen you in this jacket yet, so how about this?” she says as she starts grabbing things. “And if you wear this shirt and this tie, it will really pop.” As she picks the slacks, I try to be helpful and pick out shoes. “No, you can’t wear those shoes with this,” she says. “Here, wear these and this belt.”
When I am at the event, I hear compliments about how I’m dressed, so when I return home, I hang that whole outfit together in the closet because I know it goes together. Then the next time I get ready to leave for a speaking engagement, I put it on and walk confidently into the bedroom. Margaret says, “You can’t wear that again,” and off we go through the whole routine again.
Margaret has incredible instincts when it comes to anything artistic. She has a great sense of style and a fantastic eye for color. She can paint, arrange flowers, design, hunt down fine antiques, garden, decorate—you name it. She is intuitive in the areas of her strengths. Thanks to her, our homes have always been gorgeous. She could easily hold her own against any decorator on HGTV. I’m lucky because I benefit from her talent.
MORE THAN FACTS
Intuition is so difficult to explain because it’s not concrete. It doesn’t rely on just empirical evidence. If you’ve ever seen reruns of the old show Dragnet on TV Land (or if you’re my age and saw them when new), you probably know the phrase Jack Webb made famous: “Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.” The Law of Intuition depends on so much more than just the facts. The Law of Intuition is based on facts plus instinct plus other intangible factors, such as employee morale, organizational momentum, and relational dynamics.
Colin Powell, retired army general and former secretary of state, provides a good explanation of the use of leadership intuition and its impor-tance. He observes that many leaders have trouble if they desire to have an exhaustive amount of data or wait to have all their questions answered before making decisions. Powell says that his practice is to make a Leadership decision after gathering only 40 to 60 percent of the information that can be obtained, and then he uses his experience to make up the difference. In other words, he bases his leadership decisions as much on intuition as on facts. He relies on the Law of Intuition. And that often separates the great leaders from the merely good ones.
LEADERSHIP IS THEIR BIAS
Good leaders see everything with a leadership bias, and as a result, they instinctively, almost automatically, know what to do when it comes to leading. This read-and-react instinct is evident in the best leaders. For example, consider the career of another former U.S. Army general: H. Norman Schwarzkopf. Time after time, he was assigned commands that others avoided, but he was able to turn the situations around as the result of his exceptional leadership intuition and ability to act. Leaders are often able to do similar things.
When Schwarzkopf had been in the army seventeen years, he finally got his chance to command a battalion. It occurred in December 1969 during his second tour of Vietnam as a lieu-tenant colonel. The command, which nobody wanted, was of the First Battalion of the Sixth Infantry, the “First of the Sixth.” But because the group had such a horrible reputation, it was nicknamed the “worst of the Sixth.” Confirming this was the fact that as he took command, Schwarzkopf was told that the battalion had just flunked its annual inspection with an abysmal score—only sixteen out of a possible one hundred points. He had only thirty days to whip his men into shape.
Schwarzkopf was repeatedly able to turn bad situations around as the result of his exceptional leadership intuition.
SEEING THROUGH A LEADERSHIP LENS
After the change-in-command ceremony, Schwarzkopf met the outgoing commander. Before the man left, he told Schwarzkopf, “This is for you,” handing him a bottle of Scotch. “You’re gonna need it. Well, I hope you do better than I did. I tried to lead as best I could, but this is a lousy battalion. It’s got lousy morale. It’s got a lousy mission. Good luck to you.”
Schwarzkopf anticipated a terrible situation, but it was even worse than he expected. His predecessor hadn’t known the first thing about leadership.
The man had never ventured outside the safety of the base camp to inspect his troops. And the results were appalling. The entire battalion was in chaos. The officers were indifferent, the most basic military security procedures weren’t being followed, and soldiers were dying needlessly. The departing commander was right: it was a lousy battalion with lousy morale. But he didn’t realize that it was largely his fault.
During the next few weeks, Schwarzkopf ’s leadership intuition kicked in, and he took action. He implemented procedures, retrained the troops, developed his leaders, and gave the men direction and a sense of purpose. When it was time for the thirty-day inspection, they achieved a passing score. And the men started to think to themselves, Hey, we can do it right. We can be a success. We’re not the worst of the Sixth anymore. As a result, fewer men died, morale rose, and the battalion started to become effective in its mission. The battalion’s turnaround was so strong that just a few months after Schwarzkopf took it over, it was selected to perform more difficult missions—the kind that could be carried out only by a disciplined, well-led group with strong morale.
WHO YOU ARE DETERMINES WHAT YOU SEE
How was Schwarzkopf able to turn around this group of soldiers? The same way he overcame difficult assignments again and again: the Law of Intuition. Other officers had the same training and access to the same resources. And Schwarzkopf wasn’t necessarily smarter than his counter-parts either. What he brought to the table was strong leadership intuition. He saw everything with a leadership bias.
Who you are dictates what you see. A scene from the movie The Great Outdoors illustrates this perfectly. In the movie, Chet, played by John Candy, is vacationing with his family at a small lake community in the woods. He is unexpectedly visited by his sister-in-law and her husband, Roman, played by Dan Aykroyd. As the two men sit on the porch of their cabin overlooking the lake and miles of beautiful forest, they start to talk. And Roman, a fast-talking wheeler-dealer, shares his vision with Chet: “I’ll tell you what I see when I look out there . . . I see the underdeveloped resources of northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. I see a syndicated development consortium exploiting over a billion and a half dollars in forest products. I see a paper mill and—if the strategic metals are there—a mining operation; a green belt between the condos on the lake and a waste management facility . . . Now I ask you, what do you see?”
Who you are dictates what you see.
“I, uh, I just see trees,” answers Chet.
“Well,” says Roman, “nobody ever accused you of having a grand vision.”
Chet saw trees because he was there to enjoy the scenery. Roman saw business opportunities because he was someone whose desire was to make money. How you see the world around you is determined by who you are.
HOW LEADERS THINK
Because of their intuition, leaders evaluate everything with a leadership bias. People born with natural leadership ability are especially strong in the area of leadership intuition. Others have to work hard to develop and hone it. But either way, intuition comes from two things: the combination of natural ability, which comes in a person’s areas of strength, and learned skills. It is an informed intuition, and it causes leadership issues to jump out to a leader in a way that they don’t with others.
I regard leadership intuition as the ability of a leader to read what’s going on. For that reason, I say that leaders are readers:
LEADERS ARE READERS OF THEIR SITUATION
Today I wear many hats. I write, speak, mentor, and network. I also own two companies. Although I speak with the presidents of my companies on a weekly basis, they run the day-to-day operations, and I go to the office only occasionally.
Recently John Hull, the president and CEO of EQUIP, commented, “John, when you come in to the office, you reenter our world very easily.” I thought that was an interesting choice of words, so I asked what he meant.
“You are very aware of the atmosphere and environment,” he explained. “You ask good questions and quickly fall in step with us on our journey. It’s never awkward when you return to the office.” As I reflected, I realized what he was describing was my use of leadership intuition.
In all kinds of circumstances, leaders pick up on details that might elude others. They “tune in” to leadership dynamics. Many leaders describe this as an ability to “smell” things in their organization. They can sense people’s attitudes. They are able to detect the chemistry of a team. They can tell when things are humming and when they’re winding down or getting ready to grind to a halt. They don’t need to sift through stats, read reports, or examine a balance sheet. They know the situation before they have all the facts. That is the result of their leadership intuition.
Natural ability and learned skills create an informed intuition that makes leadership issues jump out at leaders.
LEADERS ARE READERS OF TRENDS
Most followers are focused on their current work. They think in terms of tasks at hand, projects, or specific goals. That is as it should be. Most managers are concerned with efficiency and effectiveness. They often possess a broader view than employees, thinking in terms of weeks, months, or even years. But leaders take an even broader view. They look years, even decades ahead.
Everything that happens around us does so in the context of a bigger picture. Leaders have the ability—and responsibility—to step back from what’s happening at the moment and to discern not only where the organization has been but also where it is headed. Sometimes they can accomplish this through analysis, but often the best leaders sense it first and find data to explain it later. Their intuition tells them that something is happening, that conditions are changing, and that trouble or opportunity is coming. Leaders must always be a few steps ahead of their best people, or they’re not really leading. They can do that only if they are able to read trends.
LEADERS ARE READERS OF THEIR RESOURCES
A major difference between leaders and everyone else is the way they see resources. A good worker encounters a challenge and thinks, What can I do to help? A high achiever asks, How can I solve this problem? A peak per-former wonders, What must I do to reach the next level so that I can over-come this?
Leaders who want to succeed maximize every asset and resource they have for the benefit of their organization.
Leaders think differently. They think in terms of resources and how to maximize them. They see a challenge, problem, or opportunity, and they think, Who is the best person to take this on? What resources—raw materials, technology, information, and so forth—do we possess that will help us? What will this take financially? How can I encourage my team to achieve success?
Leaders see everything with a leadership bias. Their focus is on mobilizing people and leveraging resources to achieve their goals rather than on using their own individual efforts. Leaders who want to succeed maximize every asset and resource they have for the benefit of their organization. For that reason, they are continually aware of what they have at their disposal.
LEADERS ARE READERS OF PEOPLE
President Lyndon Johnson once said that when you walk into a room, you don’t belong in politics if you can’t tell who’s for you and who’s against you. That statement also applies to any other kind of leader. Intuition helps leaders sense what’s happening among people and know their hopes, fears, and concerns. They can sense what’s happening in a room—whether there’s curiosity, doubt, reluctance, anticipation, or relief.
Reading people is perhaps the most important intuitive skill leaders can possess. After all, if what you are doing doesn’t involve people, it’s not Leadership. And if you aren’t persuading people to follow, you aren’t really leading.
LEADERS ARE READERS OF THEMSELVES
Finally, good leaders develop the ability to read themselves. Poet James Russell Lowell observed, “No one can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.” Leaders must know not only their own strengths and blind spots, skills and weaknesses, but also their current state of mind. Why? Because leaders can hinder progress just as easily as they can help create it. In fact, it’s easier to damage an organization than it is to build one. We’ve all seen excellent organizations that took generations to build begin falling apart in a matter of years.
When leaders become self-centered, pessimistic, or rigid in their thinking, they often hurt their organizations because they are likely to fall into the trap of thinking they cannot or should not change. And once that happens, the organization has a hard time becoming better. Its decline is inevitable.
THREE LEVELS OF LEADERSHIP INTUITION
If you’re saying to yourself, I’d like to be able to read these dynamics in my organization, but I just don’t see things intuitively, don’t despair. The good news is that you can improve your leadership intuition, even if you are not a natural-born leader. As I’ve already mentioned, leadership intuition is informed intuition. The less natural leadership talent you have, the more you will need to make up for it by developing skills and gaining experience. They can help you to develop thinking patterns, and thinking patterns can be learned.
I’ve found that all people fit into three major intuition levels:
1. THOSE WHO NATURALLY UNDERSTAND LEADERSHIP
Some people are born with exceptional leadership gifts. They instinctively understand people and know how to move them from point A to point B. Even when they’re kids, they act as leaders. Watch them on the playground, and you can see other kids following them. People with natural leadership intuition can build upon it and become world-class leaders of the highest caliber.
2. THOSE WHO CAN BE NURTURED TO UNDERSTAND LEADERSHIP
Most people fall into this category. They have adequate people skills, and if they are teachable, they can develop intuition. Leadership can be learned. However, people who don’t try to improve their leadership and never work to develop their intuition are condemned to being blindsided in their Leadership for the rest of their lives.
3. THOSE WHO WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND LEADERSHIP
I believe nearly everyone is capable of developing leadership skills and intuition. But occasionally, I run across someone who doesn’t seem to have a leadership bone in his body and who has no interest in developing the skills necessary to lead. This isn’t you because these people never pick up a leadership book.
DEVELOPING INTUITION
BY CHANGING YOUR THINKING
Several years ago I gained insight into college football and about how quarter-backs are trained to think when I was invited to the University of Southern California. Their coach at that time was Larry Smith. He asked me to speak to the Trojans football team before a big game and also allowed me to visit the team’s offensive war room.
On chalkboards covering every wall, the coaches had mapped out every possible situation their team could be in—according to down, yardage, and place on the field. And for every situation, the coaches had planned a speccivic play designed to succeed, based on their years of experience and their intuitive knowledge of the game.
While I was there, I noticed a cot against one of the walls. When I asked what it was for, the offensive coordinator said, “I always spend Friday night here to make sure that I know all the plays, too.”
“Yeah, but you’ve got all of them written down on that sheet that you’ll carry with you tomorrow on the sidelines,” I said. “Why don’t you just use that?”
“I can’t rely on that,” he answered. “There isn’t time. You see, by the time the ball carrier’s knee touches the ground, I have to know what play to call next based on the situation. There’s no time to fumble around deciding what to do.” It was his job to put the coaching staff ’s intuition into action in an instant.
But the coaches didn’t stop there.
The three USC quarterbacks had to memorize every one of those plays.
The night before the game, I watched as the coaches grilled those young men, firing one situation after another at them. The job of the quarterbacks was to recite which play was right for the situation. The coaches wanted those players to be so well informed, so ready, that their intuition would take over during crunch time. It would help them to effectively lead the team.
A leader has to read the situation and know instinctively what play to call.
LEADERS SOLVE PROBLEMS USING THE LAW OF INTUITION
Whenever leaders face a problem, they automatically measure it—and begin solving it—using the Law of Intuition. They evaluate everything with a leadership bias. For example, leadership intuition came into play in recent years at Apple Computer. Just about everybody knows the success story of Apple. The company was created in 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in a garage. Just four years later, the business went public, opening at twenty-two dollars a share and selling 4.6 million shares. It made more than forty employees and investors millionaires overnight.
But Apple’s story hasn’t been all positive. Since those early years, Apple’s success, stock value, and ability to capture customers have fluctuated wildly. Jobs left Apple in 1985, having been pushed out in a battle with CEO John Sculley, the former Pepsi president whom Jobs had recruited in 1983. Sculley was followed by Michael Spindler in 1993 and then Gilbert Amelio in 1996. None of them was able to reestablish Apple’s previous success. In its glory days, Apple had sold 14.6 percent of all personal computers in the United States. By 1997, sales were down to 3.5 percent. That was when Apple again looked to the leadership of its original founder, Steve Jobs, for help. The failing company believed he could save it.
Whenever leaders face a problem, they automatically measure it—and begin solving it—using the Law of Intuition.
REINVENTING APPLE
Jobs intuitively reviewed the situation and immediately took action. He knew that improvement was impossible without a change in leadership, so he quickly dismissed all but two of the previous board members and installed new ones. He made changes in the executive leadership. And he fired the company’s ad agency and held a competition for the account among three firms.
He also refocused the company. Jobs wanted to get back to the basics of what Apple had always done best: use its individuality to create products that made a difference. At the time Jobs said, “We’ve reviewed the road map of new products and axed more than 70 percent of the projects, keeping the 30 percent that were gems. Plus we’re adding new ones that are a whole new paradigm of looking at computers.”1
None of those actions was especially surprising. But Jobs also did something that really showed the Law of Intuition in action. He read Apple’s situation and made a leadership decision that went absolutely against the grain of Apple’s previous thinking. It was an incredible intuitive leadership leap. Jobs created a strategic alliance with the man whom Apple employees considered to be their archenemy—Bill Gates. Jobs explained, “I called Bill and said Microsoft and Apple should work more closely together, but we have this issue to resolve, this intellectual-property dispute. Let’s resolve it.”
They negotiated a deal quickly, which settled Apple’s lawsuit against Microsoft. Gates promised to pay off Apple and invest $150 million in non-voting stock. That cleared the way for future partnership and brought much-needed capital to the company. It was something only an intuitive leader would have done. Apple’s stock value immediately went up 33 percent. And in time, Apple regained some of the prestige it had lost over the years.
REVOLUTIONIZING MUSIC
In 2001, Jobs made another leadership move based on his intuition. While other computer manufacturers were pursuing PDAs, he was looking at music. And when an independent contractor and hardware expert named Tony Fadell approached Apple with an idea for an MP3 player and a music sales company, Apple embraced it, even though several other companies had rejected it. Fadell was hired on, and they began working on what would eventually be known as the iPod.
Improvement is impossible without change.
Jobs’s involvement with the iPod is an indication of his leadership intuition. Ben Knauss, who was on the inside of the project, says, “The interesting thing about the iPod is that since it started, it had 100 percent of Steve Jobs’s time. Not many projects get that. He was heavily involved in every single aspect of the project.”2 Why did Jobs do that? Because his intuition as a leader made him understand the impact that the device could make. It was consistent with his vision for creating a digital lifestyle.
Jobs has been right on. Sales have been phenomenal and have exceeded the company’s computer sales. Apple was making a profit while other technology companies suffered. By spring of 2002, Apple had shipped more than 10 million units.3 By the end of 2005, Apple possessed 75 percent of the world market for digital music players!4
Jobs’s story is a reminder that leadership is really more art than science. The principles of leadership are constant, but the application changes with every leader and every situation. That’s why it requires intuition. Without it, leaders get blindsided, and that’s one of the worst things that can hap-pen to a leader. If you want to lead long, lead well, and stay ahead of others, you’ve got to obey the Law of Intuition.
Applying
THE LAW OF INTUITION
To Your Life
1. How are you when it comes to trusting your intuition? Are you a facts or feelings person? To become better at the Law of Intuition, you must first be willing to trust your intuition. Begin by working within your areas of greatest strength.
First, determine which is your strongest natural talent. Second, participate in that talent, paying attention to your feelings, instincts, and intu-ition. When do you know something is “right” before you have evidence? How can you tell when you’re “on”? Do your instincts in this area ever betray you? If so, when and why? Get to know your aptitude for intuition where you are strong before trying to develop it in leadership.
2. One of the most important abilities in leadership is reading people. How would you rate yourself in this area? Can you tell what others are feeling? Can you sense when people are upset? Happy? Confused? Angry? Do you anticipate what others are thinking?
If this is not an area of strength for you, then work on improving by doing these things:
Read books on relationships.
Engage more people in conversations.
Become a people watcher.
3. Train yourself to think in terms of mobilizing people and harnessing resources. Think about current projects or goals. Now imagine how you can accomplish them without doing any of the work yourself except for recruiting, empowering, and motivating others.
You may even want to write the following on a note card and keep it in your pocket or organizer:
Who is the best person to take this on?
What resources do we possess that can help us?
What will this take financially?
How can I encourage my team to achieve success?