Your Gut Isn't Just For You

Your Gut Isn't Just for You

I got a crown put on this week. My back molar was past the point of saving. My dentist, who knows what I do for work, sat down next to me and said, "James, there are 3 types of problems."

I had no idea where he was going with this. He kept going, "Solvable problems have a process, follow the steps. Complicated problems have more moving parts, but there's still a playbook. Then there are complex problems, those don't get solved the same way. They need something else."

His tone had shifted, I could tell we weren't talking about my teeth anymore. This was about his leadership, his dental practice. He didn't say so, and I didn't ask. The numbing shot was already taking hold, so I just let him vent.

He tipped me back in the chair and the drill hit my tooth. I stared at the ceiling tile and thought about what “solving the complex” actually takes. Leading a dentist office, a tech company, a school district, it doesn't matter. Leadership is a complex problem. No process solves it. Often there is not a playbook to follow. Lying there with my mouth wide open, I wondered about that “something else.”

Lying there, unable to do anything but think, it became simple. Everybody has intuition. The ability to sense what's happening around them. Most of us only ever use it for one purpose. Researchers call it the SCARF model: your gut constantly scans for Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, Fairness. One question, on a loop, Am I safe here?

We are hardwired with this question of safety. Though we all ask it in different ways, it's always pointed in the same direction. Inward. Your intuition second guesses what you're about to say before you've said it. It's keeping track of how you're doing in the room, even when you don't realize it. It's watching for the moment that could blindside you. That's intuition working for you, and it's mostly about you.

Leadership Needs Intuition

Leadership isn't about you, and I mean that the hard way, not the LinkedIn inspo way. I've watched capable people work themselves into the ground trying to prove themselves, when that was never what we were measuring in the first place. What you should actually be measuring is how much more other people do because you're leading them. None of that depends on whether you feel safe in the room.

This is complex; getting other people to do more looks different every time, and your intuition is the key to solving it. But first, you have to change direction. Stop scanning for your safety. Start sensing what the person across from you is actually signaling.

I still catch my intuition defaulting back. Mid-conversation with a client, sensing for how I'm being perceived instead of what they need. The redirect isn't automatic. It can be developed. One conversation at a time, including the conversations on my calendar today.

This is the part of leadership that's so hard to quantify. The sense that someone's holding something back. That's intuition. The flicker that tells you the real issue isn't the one being said out loud. Your intuition can be used for someone else, not just you.

How You Reorient Your Intuition

Read the person in front of you before you say your first word. Are they rushed? Guarded? Relieved to finally be sitting down? I've walked into calls with my opening line ready, only to realize the other person needed something completely different. I got there eventually, but by then my influence was diminished.

Echo what you sense, not what you're sure of. A leader I coach told her team, "I'm sensing some tension around this project." Silence. Then someone corrected her, it wasn't the project, it was something else. She'd missed a deadline the week before, and nobody had said anything. She wasn't right, but she said it out loud anyway. That's what got the real conversation going.

Allow the pause to run longer than feels natural. The first answer is rarely the real one. It's the safe one, the rehearsed one. The truth usually shows up a little later, once the silence has had time to sit. This isn't about catching someone off guard. It's about giving them room to get past what they came in ready to say.

Develop your intuition somewhere small before you need it somewhere big. Nobody builds this skill in the high stakes meeting. You learn it in the two minute hallway conversation nobody's watching, or the text you almost don't send. Those are the reps. By the time the real moment comes, you're not trying to remember how to do this. You already are.

Read the person. Echo what you sense. Allow the pause. Develop it small. Put those together, and you get READ. Which is exactly what your intuition has been trying to do the whole time.

Back to the Chair

A tooth doesn't come back once it's gone. That's why I was in that chair this week. Nothing changes that: not more brushing, not better flossing, not any amount of mouthwash.

Intuition isn't like that. It doesn't wear down from use. It wears down from disuse, from years of only ever pointing it at yourself. Years of chewing on the same question: Am I safe?

You can move past protecting yourself. Your intuition was built for more than that. You'll have a conversation today where your gut tells you something you're not sure of. When it does, don't ask if you're safe. Ask yourself: What do I sense they need?

Where is your intuition pointed?

Who do you sense needs this? Copy this article link ☝️ and send it to them.