Leaders who ignore their inner guidance could risk losing trust, clarity and alignment. Unsplash+
This Q&A is part of Observer’s Expert Insights series, where industry leaders, innovators and strategists distill years of experience into direct, practical takeaways and deliver clarity on the issues shaping their industries. Leaders are taught to prize data, KPIs and quarterly results above all else. Yet for Mory Fontanez, a former corporate crisis manager turned intuitive leadership advisor, the most overlooked tool in a leader’s arsenal is also the most human: intuition.
Fontanez has spent her career guiding Fortune 500 executives through high-stakes moments—from brand crises to cultural fractures—where the noise of competing pressures often drowns out clarity. Her core belief: every leader possesses an internal guidance system, but too few are taught how to access and trust it. Ignoring that inner voice, she argues, not only increases the risk of reputational missteps and lost trust but severs the authentic connection leaders need with their teams and customers.
Rather than positioning intuition in opposition to data, Fontanez frames it as a partner: a hypothesis that data can support, or a compass to navigate when metrics conflict. She has seen how cultivating intuition—naming it, practicing it and distinguishing it from impulse—enables faster alignment, stronger decision-making and deeper trust across organizations.
Intuitive leadership isn’t a soft skill but a practical, learnable competency. In an era of A.I.-driven decisions and mounting external pressures, leaders who reconnect with their inner wisdom will be the ones shaping the future.
How do you define “intuitive leadership” in practical, day-to-day terms?
Intuitive leadership begins with turning inward—checking in with oneself before taking action or seeking counsel from others. It requires deep self-trust and the belief that within each of us is a well of intuitive wisdom that holds the answers we seek. From this grounded place, intuitive leaders speak and act with clarity, confidence and decisiveness.
Equally important is their willingness to name this process—whether by saying, “my gut tells me” or “I sense we need to move in this direction.” By openly using the language of intuition, they normalize it, giving their teams permission to do the same. In doing so, they encourage others to access and trust their own inner guidance. In my experience advising hundreds of leaders and teams, I’ve seen that when leadership embraces this approach collectively, alignment comes more naturally, decisions happen faster, and—perhaps most importantly—leaders cultivate stronger connections with their employees, inspiring greater motivation and engagement.
You argue that intuition is an undervalued leadership tool. Why do you think so many leaders today are disconnected from it?
We haven’t been taught to take our intuition seriously or work to cultivate it. Most of us have grown up in societies that teach us that wisdom is external—that it comes from an expert, a guru or a teacher— rather than coming from within each of us. The world around us, particularly corporate culture, further drives home that message by being overly reactive to others and making decisions that seem disconnected from the well-being of teams and customers.
With all this conditioning, it takes quite a courageous leader to swim against the current and stop and say, “Wait a minute, this thing I’m being asked to do doesn’t feel right in my bones. I’m going to listen to myself.” I do believe that the more we normalize intuition as a very practical and pragmatic part of us, the less woo-woo and crazy it will seem to listen to this unseen source of knowing. In fact, many, many leaders are doing it today. Eighty-five percent of CEOs use intuition when making key decisions.
Many leaders default to data and KPIs. Where does intuition fit into a business landscape that prizes measurable outcomes?
We don’t have to follow a binary that tells us we need to choose between intuition and data. Look at the scientific model. Science starts with a hypothesis, then does the experiment to find the data to prove it. Who’s to say those hypotheses don’t come from an intuitive insight? Albert Einstein once said, “All great discoveries require such a leap of intuition.” Data in business is much the same.
In my experience, in fact, brands are inundated with data, much of which can contradict the other. Starting with intuition means that a leader or the business is trained to stop in and check: What’s the inner nudge about our customer? Now, can we go find data to prove this nudge to be accurate? Or the other way around, the data is telling us to do x or y, what do we intuitively know about the best way to do that?
How can executives distinguish between intuition and impulse when making high-stakes decisions?
Intuition and impulse have very different characteristics. Think of impulse as a reaction to a stimulus, much like the reptilian part of our brain that chooses fight or flight. This is a survival mechanism that is reacting to a perceived threat. That survival instinct will have both an emotional and energetic signature to it that is quite the opposite of intuition. Usually it will include some form of anxious feeling or even fear, both of which can be felt in the body as a contraction, a heaviness or a frantic energy. It’s good to notice this about yourself so you can begin to decipher between a thought that comes from fear vs. a thought that arrives intuitively.
Intuition, on the other hand, is like information that lands very softly without much to do. Intuition is emotionally neutral. It does not cause fear or contraction, anxiety or frantic feelings. It is, in fact, quite calm. I often advise leaders to just take a breath and discern between the two experiences, then train themselves to follow the ground, neutral thought. This helps make us all far less reactive and much more deliberate about the way we move in the world—which we need leaders to do more than ever right now.
In your experience, what business risks increase when leaders ignore their inner guidance?
As a crisis manager, I have endless evidence for how ignoring our inner guidance lands us in hot water. I’ve seen leaders ignore those nudges and quite literally harm their customers, inadvertently. Whether they ignored that feeling to triple check the supply chain on their packaged goods that led to illness in customers, or ignored the nudge that told them not to hold said event or not to say the statement they were handed that ended up offending hundreds, I’ve seen it go badly time and time again.
But here’s the other risk that goes mostly ignored: when we don’t trust ourselves enough to listen to our inner wisdom, it is incredibly difficult for others to trust us. This is where you see leaders begin to lose their teams and eventually their customers. Trust is everything as a leader, and if people can’t trust you, they just won’t follow.
How can organizations build cultures that encourage intuition-driven leadership without sacrificing accountability?
The most important trait I help teams develop to accomplish this is learning to disagree. When we exist in cultures that cannot tolerate disagreement, we learn to silence our own inner knowing. But when teams and leaders are comfortable with disagreement, it encourages others to speak up. It is through that open, intuitive communication that innovation happens. In that same vein, if either disagreement or failure is punished, not only do we see people silence their knowing selves, we also see fewer people want to take accountability. Why would you find the courage to own a mistake if mistakes are not tolerated in your environment? It doesn’t make sense. If we want more innovative and accountable teams, we must encourage disagreement, increase our risk tolerance and see failure as growth. When we are tapped into our intuitive knowing, we are constantly reminded that all of that is possible and that any other thought that restricts us is fear.
What leadership blind spots do you see most often in Fortune 500 executives, and how could a stronger connection to intuition help address them?
The greatest blind spot I see in leaders is disconnection—first from themselves, and eventually from others. Today’s Fortune 500 leaders are navigating extraordinary complexity while trying to satisfy the competing demands of their stakeholders. A common example: what investors expect from a brand often conflicts with what is best for employees or customers. This tension leaves leaders torn between competing interests, creating an overwhelming amount of external noise and pressure. That noise is what separates us from our intuitive guidance system—our inner GPS. When it goes offline, clarity is lost. Yet staying connected to this internal guidance is precisely what enables leaders to move through competing pressures with wisdom and to pursue outcomes that serve all stakeholders. When nurtured, this connection doesn’t just help leaders manage complexity—it creates the possibility for new paradigms. Paradigms that reject the illusion of scarcity, the belief that only some can win, and instead reveal pathways where all can be served through our actions and decisions.
Can intuition be cultivated systematically, the same way companies invest in other leadership competencies?
Absolutely. It starts with believing it exists and that it’s valuable, and this is cultivated by looking for evidence. I often tell my clients, and even myself when I am doubting my own knowing, to look back in time at a moment when I just knew the answer and ask myself, what was the outcome of following this knowing? Every time, the outcome has been in my best interest, which creates evidence for our brain that says following my intuition is a proven method for better outcomes.
If we apply this to a company environment, this means we are talking about intuition and its evidence more openly, we are managing by asking our teams what they are sensing or to tell us their very first “gut” feeling on something, and we are allowing differing opinions to co-exist.
During crises, when leaders are under maximum pressure, what role can intuition play alongside strategy and crisis comms?
Honing the ability to connect with intuition is what transforms crisis into calm—and, when practiced deeply, into opportunity. The essential first step is to pause. Too often, leaders feel compelled to leap into action during a crisis, which almost always results in saying or doing the wrong thing. By pausing, even briefly, you create the space to quiet reactive anxiety and reconnect with the calmer, wiser part of yourself.
From that grounded place, you can ask the simple but powerful question: What is my very next step? The answer may guide you to seek expert counsel, discern whose voices to trust and whose to set aside or simply act with greater clarity. Most importantly, it reconnects you to empathy—so that if accountability or repair is required, you can respond without defensiveness or blame. This is how a crisis becomes more than something to survive. It becomes a moment to strengthen trust with your stakeholders and, ultimately, to deepen connection.
What’s a concrete example where listening to intuition resulted in a measurable business win?
In my own business, I have countless examples. Often, it’s been about listening to the internal nudge that tells me not to work with a client. I had this nudge early in building my consulting business, where I just knew it was a bad idea to work with a certain high-profile client. I didn’t have the answer to why, but just a knowing it was a bad idea. Yet still, my own fears about financial scarcity and my desire to show that my consulting business was thriving made me say yes. Sure enough, not only did the client not take my advice and create an even bigger public crisis, they also never paid their invoice. Tens of thousands of dollars in lost time because I didn’t listen.
Another good example is for a client who was launching a new product line. The Head of Product just had this knowing that the customers would not only dislike the product, but turn on the brand if they were to release the new line. The founders, wanting to expand and please investors, pushed for the launch and, of course, just as intuited, not only did the product fail, but it also caused quite a lot of damage to their reputation with their customers, which took months to repair.
What advice would you give leaders navigating today’s uncertainty—economic shifts, A.I. disruption, geopolitical tensions—through the lens of intuition?
You know what’s right for your business, your team and your customers. That is why you are in a position of leadership. Disruption will always be there, new trends and new politics will always be a part of the deal. Don’t let these inevitable waves create doubt in you. Even if you’re dealing with something you’ve never seen before, the part of you that holds the answers is still functioning and can navigate this new territory—you just have to believe that’s true—and you’ll have access to its wisdom.
I do want leaders to know that listening to this wisdom may make them unpopular sometimes, and that is temporary. Remember, it’s a long game. Just because you don’t get the initial support or reaction you want doesn’t mean people won’t look at you down the line and say ‘Now that was a leader who always did the right thing.’ What do you value more, your legacy or a series of quick wins and instant validation? Your intuition is choosing the legacy option. If you want that, listen to this part of you.
In a business world dominated by A.I., predictive analytics and automation, where does human intuition fit into the future of leadership?
Human intuition is the one thing that can’t be replicated by A.I., although it does do a damn good job mimicking it. Intuitive leaders will continue to be the people we look to for signals and guidance as things become more complex. There is no replacing that sort of grounded leadership. It’s also important to note that, as we think about A.I. we need to understand that we are the ones shaping it. Using our intuition as we work with it will help us to 1. Have more discernment and 2. Co-create a technology that is connected to something deeper. I believe if we use our intuition when we’re working with A.I., we will move away from our fears about it and be guided towards uses that help it and us thrive.
For leaders seeking to reconnect with intuition, what’s the single most impactful first step they can take tomorrow?
Discern between the calm, grounded knowing self and the fearful, reactive and contracted self. If you can tell the difference between these two sides of you, you will know exactly which side to listen to.
