on the role of curiosity in healthy leadership
Some of the worst leadership decisions I’ve ever made came from moving too quickly towards certainty. Alternatively, some of my best decisions have come from a few key questions I thought to ask before coming down too hard on someone. If your starting line is assuming you don’t have enough information, it’s amazing how people will fill in the gaps.
As leaders, we’re rewarded for certainty and decisiveness. Your MOST likely promotable skill is to offer your boss solutions instead of more problems. I can’t tell you how much time gets spent in conversations like, “OKAY, but what do you want to DO about it?” You have a decent answer? You get to be in charge.
When you lead effectively, you learn from your mistakes and you sharpen your judgment for each future issue that will inevitably arise. Every time you learn and integrate, the less frequently you’re confused about the problem. You know what to do about whatever happens. Many individual contributors complain about micromanagers because they want freedom to figure out what they have going on, and space to work at their own pace. The flip side that micromanagers typically aren’t given credit for is that they’re likely a faster problem solver than you. They can check the box and move along in the same amount of time it takes you to realize there’s a problem at all. Is it your job to manage their anxiety about those things? No. Does it make it right, or less annoying to deal with just because there’s an explanation? No. But understanding where it comes from is simply good perspective.
Not every leader is a micromanager, but every leader runs the risk of assuming they’re the world’s best problem solver. You know what assuming does…
(It makes an ASS 🫏 [out of] U + ME)
When you assume you do have enough information, you don’t ask any questions (or not enough questions, or not the right questions) because you also assume there’s nothing else you need to know. The explanation is clear. No need to complicate it! Over time, ego disguises itself as efficiency and experienced leaders become less coachable. In other words, the higher you climb, the easier it becomes to confuse experience with omniscience.
We’re all guilty of it.
If efficiency is your goal, being curious definitely slows down your process. It feels like you’re wasting time on irrelevant details. Strong leaders know details are never irrelevant, though. Details are the difference between good and great. If you’re willing to invite others into the conversation, curiosity builds a bridge to information you otherwise wouldn’t be able to access or that other leaders never uncover.
I once had a boss who told me that sometimes you have to “slow down to speed up.” For a while I didn’t know what that meant. After many failures, I came to understand that even though uncovering the deeper issues in a situation takes some time, the time is an investment to a more efficient, lasting solution. The problem stays resolved because we cut at the root instead of the symptoms.
When you’re curious, your employees talk more. Customers reveal deeper frustrations, teams surface risks earlier, and innovation starts with questioning assumptions. People rarely hide the truth from those who make it safe to explore it.
On the note of innovation beginning with questioning assumptions, it’s not a huge leap to see that some of the best inventions ever made stem from digging into the status quo. Some of the most successful companies and startups get to (or stay) at the top because they’re always finding a new way to solve a pain point, whether it’s a quicker path to relief or sometimes just a totally different approach. Other businesses close their doors because they simply weren’t open to evolution. They were certain their model worked fine. Decay, whether in large-scale business or individual leadership, often begins the moment they decide they’ve got it all figured out.
Another important aspect to this is the emotional intelligence that curiosity naturally develops. Empathetic leaders tend to get the most ROI. Empathy doesn’t mean your heart bleeds for every little thing, so you end up getting taken advantage of. It doesn’t mean a lack of boundaries or structure. Empathy creates an environment of understanding. It creates an environment for you, as a leader, to resist the tendency to become brittle over time. It keeps you emotionally flexible. Who knows? It may even uncover a new pain point that will give you a new business idea that helps continue to revolutionize the world.
Teams mirror the emotional posture of leadership. If your leaders are constantly on defense, if they punish questions, rush to conclusions, and overvalue certainty, then your team stops thinking creatively. People don’t become curious within cultures built around self-protection. When leaders model curiosity, people will contribute more, accountability improves, and innovation increases.
Curiosity is not weakness or indecision. It’s:
- Disciplined openness
- Intellectual humility
- Emotional maturity
- Strategic patience
Salespeople get a bad rap, but the honest truth is a lot of people just aren’t that good at it. Most people don’t even try to be. Why? Not many of them make the effort to ask very many questions. Take a second to think about the best sales experience you’ve ever had. It’s tempting to think it was just because who helped you brought enough charisma to the table, but as a sales manager myself, I can promise there’s strategy behind it. It’s usually because they asked the best questions.
Ask more questions.
Did you know that whether your line of business is sales, that as a leader, you’re a salesperson? Surprise! It’s true. It’s part of your job description to sell your team on you, your strategy, your vision, and your alignment. How do you get them to buy in?
When you catch yourself a little too ready to accuse, ask yourself if it’s possible there’s an angle you might be missing. If you need help getting started, below are some key examples of a phrase that pays:
- “Can you tell me more about…?”
- “Is there a reason that…?”
- A simple request to “help me understand __”
Check out the link below to discover one of my all-time favorite depictions of this concept, demonstrated by the beloved Ted Lasso: Ted Lasso Season 1 – The Dart Game Scene – Be Curious, Not Judgmental – Walt Whitman