Insights · The living company
Intuition in leadership: sensing what the numbers do not show yet
You walk into a meeting room and immediately want to open a window. You present a plan and feel halfway through that it is not landing. Every leader knows these moments. Intuition in leadership is not mysterious: it is fast, experienced perception. The question is whether you take it seriously, and how you make it reliable.
By Dirk Jan Versluis, registered psychologist (NIP). Updated 15 November 2026.
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You already use your intuition every day
You walk into a meeting room. The previous group has just left. Chairs are crooked, half-empty coffee cups on the table. There is nothing to see and nobody has said a word. Yet it still hangs there: tension, as if the air is thicker than usual.
Or it is Friday afternoon, a quarter past four. Someone takes one more item on the agenda, and you feel that the attention is gone. Nobody says it. Everybody knows it. And when you bring a new idea to a team, you know within seconds whether people are open, or whether the door is already closing.
That is what we call energetic perception. It may sound unusual. But you do it every day. You feel whether things flow, or not.
This article draws on Dirk Jan Versluis’s book Je bedrijf is ook een patiënt (Your company is a patient too, in Dutch, December 2026). Read the summary of the whole book in organizational trauma: why your company is a patient too.
Ordinary words for something invisible
Listen at the coffee machine. “There is tension.” “Now it is flowing again.” “You could cut the atmosphere with a knife.” “It does not feel right.” Nobody is surprised by these words. We talk about someone’s presence, about things that hang in the air, about being on the same wavelength.
Every good professional uses this kind of perception. An experienced carpenter walks into a workshop, glances at a window frame and says: “That one is crooked.” Only then does he take out the spirit level. And he is right. We call it the eye of the master, and we value it in every trade. As long as we do not call it energy.
Doctors know it too. Family doctors speak of their gut feeling, and it has been studied. It is part of the clinical gaze: the impression a doctor forms of a patient before any test has been done.
Why leaders ignore what they sense
At home we still trust our feelings a little. But work is serious. You earn your money with it, and feeling officially plays a small role. When companies shut this language out, they miss something essential. They no longer have words for the moment things stop flowing. All they can do is push harder.
Yet there are many things you cannot name yet with your mind, but already feel. You cannot put your finger on it. There is no doubt that something is there. That is how every perception begins. And that is exactly where the advantage lies: what is already on the radar, your competitor sees too. What you sense first, gives you a head start.
The ceiling nobody could name
I worked with the CEO of a fairly large company. On paper there was little wrong. But under the surface a lot was moving. Several people dropped out with health complaints. There was discontent on the shop floor. You could feel that something was brewing: people could not grow anywhere. They had a good job at a good company, so they were not allowed to be unhappy. But there was a ceiling.
You felt that ceiling as soon as you made contact with the people, and also when you looked at the organization chart. I discussed it with the CEO: “I feel this as a kind of dampening.” He recognized it, but could not easily act on it. In the following year it became harder and harder to keep good people. I see this pattern often: what a leader senses usually becomes visible about one quarter later. Sometimes two.
You cannot sense from the sidelines
There is a difference between observing and participating. From a lookout tower you see the whole landscape, but you do not take part in it. In a company it is the same. As soon as you really step in, you start to feel very different things: the irritations, the blocks, the ceiling others have hit before you.
Take your first impression seriously as well. Classic social psychology does not think much of first impressions. But they are far more valuable than we think, on one condition: that you take the time to really feel, instead of skimming past. And notice your first tendency: do you step back, frown, or want to jump in and help? A company can evoke exactly such a reaction, and that reaction tells you something.
How to make your intuition reliable
What is the difference between “I just feel something” and professional perception? Three things:
- Modesty. As soon as you assume you know for sure, your senses close. Stay curious, and a little uncertain about what you find.
- Calm. Do not let it become emotional. Emotions make everything denser and heavier. Perception is about the tone, the atmosphere, the color of something.
- Discipline. Like in the gym: you practice, and you practice well. Through training, guidance and keeping each other sharp.
And there is no such thing as “I am right because I feel it.” Test your perceptions, and sense together. Different people feel different things. Together you get the more complete picture.
Know the pitfalls as well. The first is projection: am I feeling the company, or myself? The second is over-interpretation: the body comes first, so if there is a practical problem, solve it. And the third is the guru effect: the moment someone claims to always know better, perception turns into power.
Try it: tune in to your organization chart
Put the organization chart of your company in front of you and take a few minutes. Do not look at who sits where, but feel how the relationships are. Where does it feel heavy or pressed? Where is a ceiling nobody gets through? Where is it empty, or too full? And which lines look right on paper, but feel dead? Often you will see in a few minutes what is written in no job description.
Thinking and feeling, together
Thinking and feeling should not be opposites. Yet they often are. The neuroscientist Antonio Damasio showed in Descartes’ Error (1994) that feeling and emotion are indispensable for sound decisions.
Leadership needs both. In business, feeling is simply underrepresented, perhaps because it has a softer image. A leader who cannot step into both worlds has many blind spots, and sees at least half of their own company not at all. And a culture in which only what is certain and arguable is welcome, squeezes the life out of a company. Read more about highly sensitive leaders.
At Triunify
Learning to sense your company
In our coaching and in the ECA Leadership Framework we train leaders and leadership teams to sense their company: the field, the organization chart, the atmosphere in a meeting. Down to earth, practical, and always next to the numbers, not instead of them.
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Frequently asked questions
What is intuition in leadership?
Fast, experienced perception of what is going on in people, teams and organizations, before you can prove it. Like the eye of an experienced craftsman, or the gut feeling of a family doctor.
Can leaders trust their intuition?
Yes, if they make it reliable: stay modest and curious, keep it calm rather than emotional, practice, and test what they sense with others.
Is leadership intuition the same as a gut feeling?
They overlap. A gut feeling is often the first signal. Leadership intuition is what you do with it: taking it seriously, checking it, and translating it into decisions.
How can leadership intuition go wrong?
Through projection (feeling yourself instead of the company), over-interpretation, and the guru effect, when someone claims to always know better.
How do you develop intuition as a leader?
By stepping in instead of watching from the sidelines, taking first impressions seriously, practicing regularly, and sensing together with your team.
Read also
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