One size doesn’t fit all. There’s no one way to be a leader, and just because that ‘tried and tested’ advice worked for them doesn’t mean it will for you. Or even could. So consider yourself released. From the expectation that effective leaders do x or y. And the bafflement that z seems to hinder, not help.
Instead: get curious. Find out how you can be a better leader.
Question everything. How might, what if, why, why not, why now, for whom? Gather data: investigate, experiment, work systematically. Examine the unexpected. What do these outcomes tell you about where you could or should be heading? And be deliberate. What do you want to find out, what have you actually found out, and what action will you take now?
Be radically imaginative. Don’t be content with what you already know or can already see. Look beyond your line of sight. Find out what you don’t know you don’t know. Wonder what could be if. Work out how to build it. And who or what could help. Think laterally, proceed courageously as you test, feed back, adjust and adapt ideas into reality.
Look around you. Be curious about who’s allowed to be curious. Whose curiosity is lauded, and whose dismissed? Or crushed. Or gaslit. By whom, and why? Champion all curiosity. Because no one owns curiosity, and yours is not enough. This is curious leadership.
Curiosity makes you a better leader. It equips you to cut through assumptions with relevant and timely evidence so you can make better and clearer decisions. About your leadership. About your team, products, systems, ecosystems. About anything and, indeed, everything in this swiftly changing, endlessly uncertain world.
Curiosity isn’t soft or inert. It’s your most powerful asset, and the only way you can keep becoming a better leader. So ditch the notion that leaders are x or y. Or the assumption that what got you here will get you there. And get curious instead.
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Get curious with The Curious Leader newsletter. Longform, practical, personal opining on curiosity in leadership. Like this on owning your success, or this on busting that pesky FOBFO.