Trust Your Gut: What Unconventional Leaders Need to Know
At some point, you need to realize that you don’t need to change who you are; you need to know who you are.
If you’re an unconventional leader, I guarantee your team thinks you’re weird and doesn’t always get you. And if you are neurodivergent, ADHD, dyslexic, or autistic, you’re part of only 10 to 15% of the population. Most of your team, bosses or coworkers are not going to understand your thought process. It is time to stop being shocked and limited by this and start to embrace the facts. It is time for you to lead with everything you have got.
Here’s the thing: You need to understand your thought processes. You need to know how to trust your gut.
Let me tell you a story.
When Covering My Butt Became Company Policy
Years ago, I worked for a civil engineering and land surveying firm. My role as a drafting tech involved working with development designs: figuring out lot sizes, adjusting plans, and making changes based on client feedback. It was fast-paced, and things changed constantly.
The licensed land surveyor in the office, the brilliance behind all the development designs, would often come to my office and ask why I changed something, or have me revise a design. The problem? We’d already done it that way before.
To my rational mind, it was confusing. I could tell my boss and co-workers that they’d already told me to make those changes, but it seemed none of us could recall clearly. And I was the little employee, so it felt like I was the one making mistakes all the time. It wasn’t a fun feeling.
So, I started saving all iterations of projects into one big roll of versions and updates per project. I literally wrote every change request on the plans and had my boss approve it before I made any adjustments. Or they brought the design to me all redlined and I would add the date right away and add it to the pile.
Where that came in tremendous handy was down the line when developers would come back, or even when my boss would come along and say, “Oh, you made these changes.” I could pull out my stack of plans and show them the redlined plans and the date.
After about six months, my boss and I started counting on those versions to help clients understand that we’d already made those changes and they hadn’t worked. Within time, the company was able to bill out more of my hours and save clients from asking for changes they’d already requested. It wound up making them so much more money in the end because they could go back to developers saying, “We’ve already made that change two times. We have to charge you for this next change.”
What started out as a “cover my butt” thing turned out to be immensely valuable to the business. Other people in the office started doing something similar because it worked.
The Unconventional Leader’s Advantage
I see this happen time and time again for leaders who think outside the box. Because other people don’t problem-solve the same way, unconventional get questioned about their choices. As an unconventional leader, you need to trust your gut and learn how to communicate what you know to others. It’s non-negotiable.
I remember standing up for what I was doing and knowing it had value, even though they’d never seen someone do it like that before.
If you’re leading and building a company, it’s more than likely happening because you are who you are. Your different thinking process is an asset, not a liability.
But here’s what I want you to hear: If you don’t know and understand how you process, I’m going to tell you that it’s holding you back.
If you’re an unconventional leader, you are part of less than 25% of the population of leaders and if you are neurodiverse you are about 10 to 15% of the general population. People are going to question why you’re doing something. They’re going to ask if it makes sense. If your gut says that it does and you believe it’ll be beneficial for your team and the people you’re leading, trust that gut. Stand in that space and make it happen.
It’s not always going to look the same, and you might start in a direction that doesn’t feel like it’s going to be profitable or beneficial. You’ll be surprised at how that can lead to profit, innovation, and efficiency down the road.
It’s Time
It’s time for you to do a little self-study and bring more of your talents to your leadership, not less.
Understanding how you think isn’t optional for unconventional leaders. It’s your competitive advantage.
Where do you need to trust your gut more?
What is one action you could take in communicating that with someone?
I’m JoyGenea, unconventional leadership coach, international neurodiversity coach, and a really, really strong leader in my dyslexic strengths and differences.
Video Transcription:
Unconventional thinking and unconventional leadership looks and feels a little different. I will tell you quite often the outcomes are pretty incredible. Here’s a little story from myself. I worked it for a while with my civil engineering, land surveying background. I actually worked in developing property and land. What that, that’s hard to explain to the lay person, but basically where your house was probably built at some point was nothing but barren land, and somebody came along and said we should put a house here, but actually we should put a group of houses here, and it would look like this, and somebody had to draw that up and make that something tactical and tangible in the world, and surveyors told them where to put the thing, and that’s the background that I actually have, one of the careers that I’ve had along the way anyhow. While I was working in the developing world, I had it, it’s a fast paced world, a lot of things change, so you’re working on figuring out lot sizes. What I was doing a lot of the time was figuring out lots for where houses would go in developments. It’s quite, it was fun, it was a lot of fun. I worked for an incredible, you know, an incredible um, civil engineer and land surveyor. It was a brother and sister team, anyhow, great, great opportunity. One thing that was really common though is in that process there were multiple iterations of options for this property. They would go to city councils. The City Council would say yeah, we like this and that, but we don’t like this and this, and then it would come back to us. We’d fix it and change it along the way. Also the developers themselves would, oh, I want to change this, this. My point being you have all of those iterations along the way. My boss was getting mowed over by the clients at times and their ideas, and we were winding up making many, many, many iterations, and I got caught in all of that, in the fact that my boss would come at me sometimes and be like, hey, why is this like this? I didn’t tell you to change this, like you’ve made a mistake, and that was happening more and more. We were also really busy at the time, and I didn’t fully recognize all of that, but what I did recognize is I could do something to make this whole communication a lot better. I started saving my iterations. We would complete them. I would print one huge, I can’t even show you, but anyways, one really large 30 by 20, like big print of the, the piece that we had agreed on, and then I started keeping these all together stacked up per um, a project that we were working on. When I would receive emails, request to make changes and so forth, or even if they were in person, I would literally write them. I would pull out my stack of plans and I would write them on there, and I would have my boss approve it before I made any of the changes. And where that came in super handy was down the line when those developers would come along, and even when my boss would come along and say, oh, you made these changes, and I could turn around from my desk, pull out these plans, I’d lay them out, and I’d be like, let’s go through the changes, and they were dated and who gave me authorization to do it. It wound up making them so much more money in the end because they were able to then go back to the developer saying, you know what, we’ve already made that change three times, and you’ve told that, you know, you’ve had us adjust from there. We have to charge you for this next change, like we cannot continue to be doing this for free. So that was a very dyslexic type of thing because I have not so great short term memory at times, and there’s just a, there was always a lot going on. I figured out a system and a way to cover my own keister, and while I was covering my own behind, in the process it wound up being immensely beneficial to the business, to the point that other people started doing something similar because it made it easier for everybody else as a whole. That’s an example of dyslexic innovation because I do see and think things through differently, and see patterns and recognize ways to avoid pain um, and then implement those types of things. It can be immensely beneficial for businesses. So as an unconventional or different thinker, I just wanna remind you it’s not always gonna look the same, and you might start in a direction that you’re not, you know, might not feel like it’s gonna be profitable or beneficial. You’ll be surprised at how that can lead to profit and innovation and efficiency down the road. So trust your gut is what I’m saying. You are a different thinking brain. Remember you’re about 10 to 15% of the general society, so people are gonna question why you’re doing something. They’re gonna question like, does that kind of make sense? If your gut says that it does, and you believe it’d be beneficial for your team, for the people that you’re leading, trust that gut, stand in that space, and make that happen. I’m JoyGenea, unconventional leadership coach, international neurodiversity coach, and really, really strong leader in my dyslexic strengths and differences. Bye now.