Can leaders hone their intuition to make it stronger, more agile, so they’re better prepared to take on challenges? Absolutely!

Like a top athlete playing in the zone, leaders who want to make a difference and make informed decisions need a reserve of skills that they can call on automatically. When this applies to work, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it “flow.”

Athletes train and so should you. By continually building your skills throught training (leadership, growth strategies, financial acumen, etc.), fewer situations are out of your range of expertise and you feel more confident that the decisions you’re making are the right ones.

How do you know what skills to add or strengthen? Well, let’s face it, you know. If you are second guessing yourself every time you sign-off on marketing materials, if you get a knot in your stomach when you try to do financial projections, if you act like every pitch is equivalent to opening night at a Broadway show, then these are areas that you should be addressing. It’s individual, based on what you see as your weaknesses as where you think your challenges will be.

How have you received leadership training and how effective was do you think it is? Have you applied it in your day-to-day decision-making?