Mind, Heart, Gut

The Problem

Most leaders only run the first pass.

Senior leaders are trained to think. We research, model the options, gather other people's views, and plan for what could go wrong. That discipline is an asset. It also has a cost. When planning for the worst becomes the way you approach everything, it quietly turns into doubt, and doubt is hard to hide.

The way you hold your own belief in a direction shapes whether the people around you believe in it too. The check below adds two passes that most analysis skips. It takes about ten minutes, and the order matters.

The Three Passes

Think it, feel it, then name what you know.

01

Mind. What do you think? Start where you are strongest. Lay out the facts, the options, the risks, and the expert input. Then reduce it to one sentence: “Based on what I know, I think we should…” If you cannot write that sentence yet, you are not ready for the next pass.

02

Heart. How does it feel, to you and to them? Ask how the decision makes you feel. Does it energize you, create anxiety, or feel like pressure you are absorbing for someone else? Name it plainly. Then ask how it will feel to the people it affects. What you feel is usually a preview of what they will feel, even if they never say it out loud. Emotions that go unaddressed in a change do not disappear. They resurface later, larger and harder to work with. Naming them now lets you plan for them.

03

Gut. What do you now know? With the thinking and the feeling side by side, ask what has become obvious. Will this be an easy effort or a hard one? What will have to be addressed no matter what? What do you need to prepare that you had not planned for? This pass often produces sharper questions before it produces an answer. Follow them. When the answers confirm what you sensed, your conviction has something solid under it.

Try It

Ten minutes, one decision.

Pick one decision that has been stalling. Write your answers down rather than thinking them through, so you can see the gaps.

Mind: What do I think we should do, in one sentence? What am I assuming?
Heart: How does this make me feel? How will it feel to the people most affected?
Gut: Looking at both, what do I now know? What has to be addressed before this can work?
Timing: Run the same three passes on one more question. Is now the right time?

What It Reveals

Doubt, or a real risk?

The value is in the gaps between the passes. If your mind says yes and your heart says no, you have found one of two things: an emotional cost you have not planned for, or a doubt that does not hold up once you look at it directly. Both are worth knowing before you ask others to follow.

When all three passes line up, you can move with more conviction, and the people you lead will hear it.