There needs to be a certain structure to a situation, a certain predictability that allows you to have a basis for the intuition.

You shouldn't trust the judgments of stock brokers picking individual stocks.

The most valuable insight I have made about how people make decisions is that when they become skilled they don't have to make decisions - choices between options. Instead, they can draw on experience and the patterns they have acquired to recognize what to do, ignoring other options. This is the basis of the Recognition-Primed Decision (RPD) model my colleagues and I described thirty years ago.

Most corporate decisions aren't going to meet the test of high validity. But they're going to be way above the low-validity situations that we worry about.

First, the skill of storytelling helps to galvanize your team. Second, the discipline of storytelling requires leaders to be clear about their intentions and to prioritize what fits into the story versus secondary goals and issues. Third, there is possibly an artifact here - great storytellers can make their exploits and achievements sound very exciting and memorable. Successful leaders who are not good storytellers won't get the acknowledgement and appreciation they deserve.

By the time executives get to high levels, they are good at making others feel confident in their judgment, even if there's no strong basis for the judgment.

If you mean, "My gut feeling is telling me this; therefore I can act on it and I don't have to worry," we say you should never trust your gut.