The Power and Practice of Discernment

There's no one way to lead. There's no magic formula for success. There's almost never just one right answer. What, then, should leaders do to improve their ability to lead? There isn’t just one path for leadership development. However, the ability to discern is a key foundational skill for effective leadership of any style.

In today's complex world, discernment is the skill that helps leaders navigate the "gray zone" of their daily, moment-by-moment leadership experiences and connect them to the larger purpose, vision, and strategy they're leading towards.

BUT – how does one improve at such a fuzzy skill as discernment? Here are seven practices:

1. Reflection time
   Is there space in your weekly rhythm to reflect? Reflection time is awareness-building time. Be careful not to use this time to analyze others.

2. Clear thinking
   What is the quality of your thinking? If it leans overly negative or overly positive in tenor, that may be helpful information for discernment (read: wait to send that email!). If you notice that your thinking feels a bit 'cranky', and then you realize it's late and you're tired, can you have enough discernment to 'sleep on it' before taking action?

3. Integration of insights
   When you are successfully taking time to reflect and your thinking feels clear, you're very likely to find places in your and your team's work rhythms where you want to tweak things. Invest the time to hone and implement those ideas.

4. Deeper listening to others
   When you're listening to others, listen for insight that you can learn from as the leader. Are there "doorways" that are being exposed in what a team member said? They're usually subtle. From someone's tone of voice and the words they chose, if you're tuned in, you will see where there might be "more" there.

5. Inquiry of others
   Use the "doorway clues" to ask questions. Does your team have reticence over a recent decision?  Is commitment wavering on an upcoming event? Get curious to deepen your understanding, enabling richer context for future discernment.

6. System-level awareness
   If you're looking around at the system level, you'll notice things like cause and effect over time, vicious cycles that you might be able to turn into virtuous cycles, or the effect of timing (lags) in how one event triggers another. You'll notice patterns that run deeper than any one event, and you'll maybe start to notice belief systems that reinforce those patterns.

7. Humility
   In all of the above, you're one leader in a larger system. You might have a lot of influence, but you're also a human simply trying to do your best. In consciously cultivating your ability to discern, any discernment moment comes with the awareness, "This might not be the right call." The key is, can you accept that fact, and learn from it for next time?

When leaders like you exercise discernment, you navigate those moment-by-moment forks in the road that add up over time to hard-earned leadership wisdom. Keep practicing!