Curious Leaders Explore the "Why?"
By Leanne Crain
What do leadership and curiosity have to do with each other? Actually, a lot more than you’d think.
All good leaders are also curious leaders. Those leaders who consistently improve, who always seem to have the cutting edge on everything, who seem to just “get” their market, enjoy this success due to their own curiosity.
The most effective leaders among us use their curiosity to ask the important questions, and listen to the answers they receive. They know they do not know all the answers, and thus, they find ways to gather the information they need. They want to know what works and what doesn’t, or which way will work better. From there they further develop themselves, and their team or organization.
In fact, most good leaders, and good teams, are constantly questioning “why?” Why is that process the way it is? Why are we getting those results? Why did we succeed? Why did we fail? Why did sales go up? Why did sales go down? Why is the market changing?
When they discover the answers to their questions, they decide what could be done differently or improved upon, and take action on it. Then they begin the cycle of asking “why?” again.
Without curiosity, leaders become trapped in doing the same old things in the same old ways and getting the same old results. They fail to grow and improve.
Have you ever heard the story of the little girl who was watching her mom cook a fish? The mom cut off the fish’s head and tail before throwing it in a frying pan. The little girl asked her why. The mother replied “I don’t know that’s how my mom taught me.” So the little girl went to her grandmother and asked her why she cut off the fish’s head and tail before she cooked it. The grandmother replied “I don’t really know, it’s how my mother always did it.” Even more curious now, the little girl went and asked her great-grandmother why she did this. The great-grandmother thought for a moment and said “well, I did that because I didn’t have a frying pan big enough to fit the fish with the head and the tail still attached, so I cut them off.” There was really no good reason the mother and grand-mother did it that way, but because they had never questioned why, they never thought to change it, or if changing it would make it better.
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase before “we’ve always done it this way”. If you’ve always done something that way, it doesn’t make it right. A good leader is curious to discover why that is so, and if it can be improved. Rather than being defeated by circumstances, they use their curiosity to foresee potential risks, find ways to mitigate the risks, and make changes to be constantly improving everything around them.
Curiosity from a leader is one of the qualities that make them great, and a quality that all leaders should strive to be using.
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Gary Gzik is a Corporate Trainer and CEO of the business consulting company BizXcel, Inc. which owns and operates The CFBE Network and Getting to Someday. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, Getting to Someday is a place where people go to achieve their goals and dreams. Whether your goals are business related or personal, the information Gary provides rings true for both.
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