Innovation comes into the picture when a leader has the self-knowledge and self-confidence to devise innovative solutions. Leaders without a high level of self-confidence will typically be more conservative in their approach, and that can make it more difficult for those leaders to adjust. Innovation, therefore, comes from having a high level of confidence in one's abilities -- and that in turn comes from understanding your skills and how they can be best put to use in a given situation.

The article is insightful with respect to the role that emotional intelligence, particularly with regard to oneself, plays in decision-making. While managers often see themselves as highly rational, we all use our intuition more than perhaps we realize. The lesson to take from this is not that intuition should be suppressed, but that we should better understand the processes that affect that intuition. The more we know about ourselves, how we process...

One's intuition derives from emotions, knowledge and prior experience. But the decisions that are intuitive in nature can be improved when the manager understands how those decisions have come about. For the most effective leaders, intuition is more than just a gut feeling, it is something that can be understood and to a point controlled. This allows for better decisions, greater innovation and superior creativity, all executed with a high level of confidence. In bringing the reader to an understanding of this, the article is valuable, because it explains the processes that we attribute to intuition, and demystifies the different forms of emotional intelligence.