Throughout my career, I’ve learned a valuable lesson that’s often overlooked by many who are new to leadership – trust your gut. Far too often, people overthink and analyze situations trying to come up with the right decision. Some suffer from analysis paralysis, unable or unwilling to decide when it’s needed most. Your team is looking for you to make decisions that are quick and accurate. Your best decision-maker is always going to be your intuition and your gut (unless you have terrible instincts). The good news is that in my opinion, it’s possible to develop a good gut that you can trust. It’s just going to take experience, time, and learning from any failures. The better you become at making decisions, the more authentic, bold, and confident you will become in the process.
Trusting Your Gut or Regret the Decision – Hiring
I have hired and led hundreds of employees at various levels of experience throughout my career. The decision to hire (and sometimes fire) can be a challenging decision for some. Whenever I have gone against my gut instinct, telling me that something seems off with a candidate or person up for promotion, I have always regretted my decision. The employee ends up being difficult, challenging, or not the person we thought they were going to be. They could be incredibly high maintenance, challenging to work with, entitled, only good at interviewing, or just incompetent.
Hiring is expensive, as exiting an employee who doesn’t fit with your team or organizational culture is too. If a little voice in your head or a gut feeling tells you that something doesn’t seem right, listen to it. That feeling is your gut asking you to trust it. Ask others for their opinion before moving forward. Don’t be afraid to get a second or third opinion.
Failing to Trust Your Gut – Promoting the Wrong Team Member
In an earlier post, I noted that sometimes people are in the wrong roles. Unfortunately, that can be the result of promoting someone who isn’t quite ready. I’ve faced this many times in my career, forced to hire someone hoping that they can learn the job on the fly. Unfortunately, I had flashbacks of previous promotions gone wrong and still pressed forward, desperate to fill a position, taking a chance on someone I’m less confident in. Compromising never works out when it comes to promotions. In my experience, a poor promotion decision often leads to others questioning your judgment, and more work being thrust on your plate that you don’t need with cleaning up the situation you created. A hard lesson to learn is failing to trust your gut.
One Idea to Help Trust Your Gut: The Magic 8-Ball
A few years back, my wife gave me a Magic 8-Ball as one of my Christmas gifts. When faced with a decision I am unsure about, I ask the Magic 8-Ball the question. Whatever the answer that’s given, whether its something like “Definitely” or “Better Not Tell You Yet,” I use it to test and trust my gut. If I ask a question about whether I should do something like start a project now, and it comes back as a definitive “Yes” and I still feel unsure, I know I am not 100% confident or bold enough to act. I’ve had myself and other members of my team consult the Magic 8-Ball for critical decisions on which path to make with specific situations. Every time it’s used, we come away with a clear way forward, as it helped reconcile our thought processes.
Final Thought
Trust your gut. That feeling in the pit of your stomach when something doesn’t feel right is part of our evolutionary make-up. If you don’t trust your gut yet, that’s ok. Time and experience are great teachers if you remember to learn from any mistakes made. Connect with me for more on the power of effective decision-making to evolve your approach to managing yourself, team, or organization. Trust your gut as often as you can too.
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