Leadership Coaching
The Leadership Blog
This leadership coaching blog, considers a remark made by former Prime Minsiter Tony Blair, to his spin-doctor Peter Mandelson.
Leadership Coaching - The Leaders Intuition
In his book, The Third Man, Peter Mandelson recalls a conversation with Tony Blair. They are discussing the qualites that make a good politician. In particular the various merits of Gordon Brown as a potential Prime Minister.
Blair says to Mandelson, 'Whilst Gordon has the intelligence, and the ideas, the drive and the determination to make a success of government, none of that is the most important thing for a politician. It is intuition - what to do, when to do it, how to say it, how to bring people along'.
Intution...not something that is generally taught in management school. Or usually found in the thousands of volumes written about leadership and management.
Its that sixth sense that you have about something. A gut feeling. Its not about doing things by the book. Or following the plan. Its that something you feel on the drive into the office. An idea that you want to follow up on. A call you must make. An opportunity you must create for someone. A subtle issue that needs facing.
Of course by the time you have reached HQ, and fielded the first of many 'very urgent' calls waiting to be responded to, the gut feelings you had on the drive in, have been forgotten. Put off until another day.
And so it goes. Caught up in the cycle of business, the gut feelings that you pick up in your quiet moments, get overlaid by so much to do, and so little time to do it in.
If this is you...then STOP! For these gut feelings are the messages from your instinct, which is subtly tuned into the unseen elements of the business.
Yes that phone call is important. So is that meeting. But not as important as your ability to read the runes of your business.
So if you get a gut feeling about something on the way into HQ this morning, ACT ON IT! If you have trouble acting on your instincts, then perhaps a Leadership Coaching session will help you break free of the shackles of the cycle of doing.
