The confidence to ask curious questions

The best leaders are the ones who have the confidence to ask curious questions. They are open to learning something new and to doing things differently. They are curious about what they can learn when things go well and curious about what they can learn from failure.

If we want to know about curiosity, we only need to look at a cat. They are naturally curious. They spend their entire lives asking questions and have a confidence in asking questions that we can learn from. 

When I watch my cat, I wonder: What is important to him? What compels him to be curious? What does he value most in life? What does he like about hunting? How much sleep is the optimum for him?

These are curious questions. There are no right or wrong answers. When I ask these questions, I start to gain a deeper understanding of my cat, who he is, what’s important to him, what motivates him. I could ask similar questions to anyone and everyone would have a different answer. Each answer would be the right answer for that person.

Typically we ask questions to extract information that we can then use to our own benefit, e.g. what time will you be home? How long will that job take? Being curious means asking questions for the sake of learning something much deeper and for the sake of understanding the other person, e.g. what’s important to you about that? What do you value most in life? What empowers you? What do you enjoy most?

Putting it into practice:

1. Be curious about yourself. What do you value? What empowers you? What types of people energise you? What brings you alive?
2. Be curious about a colleague or friend. Listen carefully when they speak and consider what they value, what empowers them. How does that help you understand them more?

What’s the impact of your curiosity?

With love,
Jude. x

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