Curiosity is a leadership superpower
One of the key insights I’ve gleaned from leading teams and organizations over the last 25 years is that curiosity is a leadership superpower.
The reason I call it a superpower is because being curious creates a level of safety across the organization to challenge assumptions, question long-held beliefs, ask hard questions, and engage in “what if” thinking.
Embracing curiosity also helps you foster a culture of support for iterative testing and learning, enabling you to reduce stagnant thinking and fuel rapid growth.
It’s not ok to just ask surface questions. Get comfortable with people asking deep, probing questions to help refine your thinking and challenge ideas.
If you tell your people you want questions, you can’t get upset when they ask questions. Even if it slows you down, embracing a curious culture is essential for long-term growth.
No questions should be off the table.
Answer transparently. Even when the answer might be painful.
Celebrate curious behaviors and call them out in positive ways publicly to incentivize the behavior.
Agree to challenge ideas, not people.
Set clear parameters early on about what decisions you’ll delegate to the group, and what decisions you’ll make personally. But invite input on all decisions that you can.
Seek agreement for the framework of disagree and commit. What this means is that you can have a robust debate and discussion about an issue – and not everyone will agree with the direction you go. But once the decision is made, everyone agrees to commit to the decision, whether it was their preferred direction or not.
Embrace curiosity and use this framework to help your organization grow exponentially in the future.
Onward & Upward
Andrew