Leadership requires many skills. Some come naturally. Others are learned/earned.

But there is one specific skill that effective leaders I admire all have: strong intuition for what is possible. I've observed that leaders who can easily predict what is possible to achieve are highly effective. I call this a skill as opposed to a trait because it can be learned and improved upon with experience.

Why is this such an important skill? A few reasons.

First, In my experience, leaders that can accurately chart the path toward achieving goals gain a high level of trust from their teams. On the other hand, leaders who don't have this skill are constantly leaning on those around them for context that their team members might think is obvious. This can deteriorate confidence and trust.

Second, leaders with a strong intuition for what is possible don't need as much data to make sound decisions. A leader's job is often to help break ties and accelerate decision-making. Leaders who have a good intuition for what is possible can accelerate decision-making by operating off minimal data while still being right most of the time.

Last, leaders with a strong intuition for what is possible are more comfortable innovating. They're confident that they can achieve big things because they are good at estimating the probability of success. They will not take on projects they're not confident will be successful. This means they aren't afraid to take on ambitious projects over and over again.