THE INTUITIVE ELEMENT IN THE DECISION MAKING TRIUMVIRATE - A MILITARY LEADERSHIP PERSPECTIVE

Leaders, in all walks of life, are called upon to make decisions. Some of these decisions have major consequences and can be termed as ‘critical decisions'. These decisions are taken with great deliberation, utilising numerous tools/processes, in an endeavour to get these right. Unfavourable outcomes, in the case of the armed forces, are in terms of life and death and hence there is an inordinate focus in the military on taking effective decisions. This paper looks at facets that have a role in decision making in military with specific reference to other than logic driven processes and to gain a deeper insight into how one of these facets, intuition, comes into play in military to arrive at fundamentally strong decisions in battle situations. The work looks at a little understood, but very important facet of decision making, intuition, and its utility in the military context. The study is based on the information gathered from army officers through semi structured interviews. Importance of intuitive decision making in scenarios with strategic underpinnings has emerged as a finding of this study. The results also suggest that military leaders should move out of the familiar arena of analysis based logical decision making and hone intuitive decision making skills. The findings, especially the guidelines and pitfalls while employing intuition in decision making, hold relevance for strategic leaders in all domains, including the corporate.