Curiosity a leadership priority
All great ideas begin from asking the right questions. By Arinya Talerngsri
Leaders need to always be curious and ask “why” in every possible situation. Questioning reflects healthy scepticism and a desire to better understand the current situation, which helps us decide how to improve the present for the betterment of the future.
“Curiosity is one of the main traits that drive people who seem to cut through the clutter and wind up with more opportunities and more trajectory,” Cinnabon CEO Kat Cole said in one of her podcasts.
The world is changing rapidly at the speed of 4G, and the 5G world will be even faster. Businesses seem to be changing almost every day, with new technology, new ideas, new challenges and new directions. In today’s digital age, if leadership doesn’t change at the same speed as business, then their businesses will soon be left behind.
What used to work in past generations does not work anymore because learning has also changed, along with the style of business and ways of working. Leaders need to prioritise new skills to survive and thrive in the digital age, and one essential priority is inspiring curiosity.
All great ideas and solutions begin from asking the right questions. The habit of asking questions, whether to yourself, your staff and colleagues, or your customers, arises from a constant curiosity that drives you to seek answers.
Curiosity makes us think. The unending quest for answers is what motivates us to learn. When you have a burning question in mind, and you chase down the answer until you quench your curiosity, it not only adds new knowledge to your intellectual library, but also trains you to be light on your feet, with the agility to get out of your comfort zone. That helps make you a better leader and person.
Let’s look at some characteristics of curious leaders and teams:
First, they read. There’s a famous book by Jodie Jackson titled You Are What You Read, which advocates for “healthy reading” to improve one’s individual outlook and society at large. For leaders, developing the habit of
reading is essential.
No matter how knowledgeable or smart you are, if you never read what other leaders are talking about, or what’s happening around the world — new ideas, new thoughts, new technology — whatever you already know could soon become outdated and irrelevant. Reading should be part of daily life, not just an occasional pastime or hobby.
EMPATHY AND INSIGHT
Second, leaders listen. Empathy begins with listening skills. Richard Branson, the Virgin Group founder, once said: “If you want to stand out as a leader, a good place to begin is by listening. Great listeners are often terrific at uncovering and putting in place strategies and plans that have a big impact.”
Listening to your people, your customers, your competitors and the voices around you can give you business lessons and relevant insights that you won’t find anywhere else.
Third, leaders take time to learn. Learning is inevitable in a leader’s life. We stop growing when we stop learning. Former US president John F Kennedy rightly said: “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”
Whether you are willing to change or not, business is changing every day, and the only way to cope with the speed of change is to be willing to learn.
When we talk about learning, it is not only about adding a new course to your calendar. Today we need to embrace the full cycle of learning, unlearning and relearning. We all possess information that is no longer valid, and we need to be willing to let go of long-cherished assumptions and practices if we want to learn.
BEYOND THE COMFORT ZONE Fourth, leaders take risks. Naturally, we tend to settle within our comfort zone, but this works against the logic of growth. Being too comfortable can cause you to stagnate and isolate you from new opportunities that lie beyond what you’re familiar with.
Fear of failure puts leaders in a box and can gradually cause them and the organisations they lead to slip into oblivion. If you have never taken any risks in life, it means that you’ve never done anything new.
“Doubts have killed more dreams than failures ever will,” observed Suzy Kassem, a well-known American writer and philosopher. The same goes for great ideas. The great American inventor Thomas Edison once said: “I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Finally, make curiosity a ritual. Curiosity is not an external tool that you can plug in only when you need it. It needs to be an internal habit ingrained into your daily lifestyle. You need to embrace a constant process of seeking better solutions and clearer information every day, and that includes questioning yourself and your ideas — and not shying away from changing yourself in the process of learning.
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No matter how knowledgeable you are, if you never read what other leaders are talking about, or what’s happening around the world, whatever you already know could soon become irrelevant.