Over the past year, I’ve been struck by how often curiosity seems to be missing as I work with leaders and teams in organisations.
There's often a lot of talking. People sharing their views, offering opinions, presenting facts, making statements. Sometimes passionately, sometimes thoughtfully, sometimes with great conviction.
But what I notice much less often is curiosity. Curiosity about what someone else has just said. About why they might see things differently. About how our own contribution has landed. Or even about what's happening between us as we talk.
What I witness more often is an exchange of statements rather than a real conversation in which people are present and connected with each other. And I wonder - what happens when curiosity is missing.
When curiosity is absent, what happens to learning? To creativity? To our relationships?
If I'm primarily concerned with expressing my own view, I'm less available to be influenced by yours. And if neither of us is open to being influenced, we may leave the conversation with exactly the same thinking we brought into it. We might have communicated. But have we really connected?
If we have no curiosity about each other, what does that tell us? Does it mean we don't care about each other?
I don't believe that a lack of curiosity necessarily means a lack of care. Although I've seen many times when it's been received and interpreted in this way. And I'm curious about what might be getting in our way of being more curious.
What inhibits our curiosity?
Being genuinely curious means being willing to discover something we didn't already know. It might mean having our assumptions challenged, recognising the impact we're having on someone else, or allowing our thinking to change. This isn't always comfortable. Perhaps that's why curiosity can be so easily lost in organisations and the wider world.
We're busy. We feel pressure to know, to decide, to demonstrate expertise. Sometimes we want to protect our position or avoid disagreement. Perhaps we've created cultures where having the answer is valued more highly than asking powerful questions.
We might believe we're supportive, inclusive and interested in others, but if we rarely demonstrate curiosity about their experience, how would they know?
Curiosity begins within
I wonder how much of this starts with leadership itself. The more power we have, the more important it becomes to examine whether our curiosity is genuine, because others may be very aware of the difference.
When leaders feel they need to demonstrate certainty, how much space does that leave for others to question, challenge or contribute something unexpected? And when we invite people's views, are we genuinely open to being influenced by them, or are we simply looking for confirmation of what we've already decided?
Perhaps one of the most revealing tests of our leadership isn't how well we listen to people, but how we respond and how curious we remain when someone challenges our thinking.
There's a paradox here. The more complex the challenges we face, the less likely it is that any one of us has the answer. Yet complexity and uncertainty can make us cling even more tightly to what we think we know, just when we most need to be curious.
What if we approached our next meeting differently?
What if we entered our next meeting or next conversation with the primary intention of learning something?
What if…..
we paid attention to whose voices are heard and whose aren't?
we noticed what happens when someone offers a different perspective?
we became curious about the silence as well as the words?
And what if we became curious about our own individual and collective reactions? When do we become defensive? When are we genuinely listening? When are we already preparing our response?
These small moments of awareness can create new choices for us individually and collectively.
We might ask a question instead of making another statement. Invite a perspective we haven't heard. Check how our contribution has landed. Or acknowledge that someone else's thinking has shifted our own.
This all begins with us and how we choose to show up. In my work as a leadership coach, I'm interested in curiosity not simply as a skill but as a way of being. Gestalt approaches to coaching and leadership invite us to pay attention to what is happening in the present moment — within ourselves, between people and in the wider environment. They encourage us to notice before we rush to interpret, judge or act.
Getting curious about curiosity
If you choose to get more curious about curiosity, here are some questions that might support you as you go into your next conversation or meeting:
What am I genuinely curious to understand that I don't already know, and how willing am I to have my thinking changed?
What happens to my curiosity when someone challenges or disagrees with me?
If others judged how much I valued them by the curiosity I showed towards them, what might they conclude?
These are also the kinds of questions that make reflective coaching so valuable. We begin to see patterns in how we relate to others and the quality of connection between us that can otherwise remain invisible to us. And as our awareness grows, so does our capacity to choose a different response.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom”
Viktor E. Frankl, “Man’s Search for Meaning”
The impact doesn't stop with us. A leader who becomes more curious can change the quality of a conversation, the contribution of a team and, over time, the possibilities for learning, creativity and innovation. Just as importantly, they can influence how people experience being heard, valued and connected to one another.
Perhaps curiosity is where both connection and inspiration begin…
If you’re interested to explore this further for your own leadership and/or your team, I’d love to hear from you, please get in touch.
You can also listen to a podcast on Curiosity where I’m in conversation with Helen Tiffany on her brilliant Podcast 'The Sounding Board’.