Curiosity is a Leadership Super Power
/Curiosity is an incredibly powerful practice, and I believe it is one of the critical factors in being an outstanding leader.
"Curiosity killed the cat” is a common warning. In the TV hit show Doctor Who, when a character considers opening that ominous door at the end of the creepy, dark hallway, I am often found squirming in my seat and yelling, “Don’t open the door….some scary monster could be on the other side!”
But, what if behind that door, there’s a beautiful, shiny new car behind it like on the Price is Right? You’ll never know unless you walk over to the door and open it!
Curiosity is an underrated leadership quality. When I was working in the corporate world, I don’t remember ‘curiosity’ was not a leadership quality measured on my employee assessment. But curiosity is critical for today’s leaders because it fuels innovation, connection, creativity, and collaboration.
“Much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless.” —Steve Jobs
When I think of curiosity, I think about the inventors who toil to create things that affect our daily lives. Thomas Edison’s endless curiosity about how things work fueled countless innovations, including the lightbulb, the phonograph and early motion pictures. Tim Berners-Lee was curious about how scientists could share data more efficiently, which led him to create the first web browser, laying the foundation for the modern internet in 1989. Jennifer Doudna co-discovered CRISPR-Cas9, a gene-editing technology that allows precise genetic modification that has already impacted medicine, agriculture, and could help treat genetic diseases.
But inventors are not the only people who need curiosity for their job. Leaders need to lean into curiosity every day. That is because of curiosity:
Leads to Better Decision-Making
Curious leaders seek diverse perspectives, which leads to more balanced decisions.When leaders seek multiple perspectives, it reduces bias, increases objectivity, and leads to smarter, more informed decisions. Jamie Diamond, the CEO of Chase, visits bank branches in underserved communities and asks questions about improving customer service. His focus on curiosity helps him make decisions for the bank, for the typical bank customer.
Cultivates Greater Adaptability
Curious minds are open to change, feedback, and uncertainty—critical traits in today’s dynamic business environment. Curiosity fosters openness to new ideas and change. Netflix prioritizes curiosity as a core value. With a data-driven approach to content creation and innovation, the company has shaped how we consume entertainment. Netflix encourages employees to be open-minded and experimental, which forces the company to constantly evolve with the changing entertainment landscape.
Fuels Customer Empathy and Innovation
By exploring new possibilities, curious leaders drive creativity and innovation within their teams. Emily Weiss built Glossier by being intensely curious about what real consumers wanted from beauty brands. She mined insights from her blog Into The Gloss and co-created products with her community—disrupting the beauty industry by prioritizing dialogue over dictation. Weiss’ relentless curiosity about real women’s beauty routines transformed a personal blog into a beauty empire that prioritizes co-creation over top-down branding.
Feeds our Creativity
When we follow our curiosity, we expand our perspective and feed our creativity. When Steve Jobs went to Reed College, he audited a calligraphy class at Reed College—not because he needed it, but because he was curious about beautiful design. That class later inspired the typography and user interface design in the original Macintosh, which revolutionized personal computing and started the tech boom in the 1980s.
Builds our Tenacity
On the hunt for a solution to challenging problems, curiosity keeps us focused and humble. Curiosity will lead you through a foray of possibilities as well as some dead ends. Thomas Edison tested over 1,000 materials while inventing the light bulb. In this way, curiosity keeps us engaged and builds our resilience as we search for the answers to complex problems.
Improves collaboration
Asking questions signals active listening and empathy. Curious leaders connect better with teams, build trust, and create psychologically safe spaces. By asking insightful questions and showing empathy, these leaders fostering a culture of trust and collaboration. SurveyMonkey (now Momentive) not only encourages curiosity—it operationalizes curiosity. Former CEO Zander Lurie made “Powering the Curious” a living strategy and created a culture where better questions led to product innovation and cross-team collaboration.
Want to unlock more curiosity in your leadership? Here are three practices to cultivate curiosity:
Ask Open-ended Questions
Encourage open-ended thinking in meetings. Close-ended questions are questions that are framed to limit answers to yes or no; these questions discourage open engagement. Open-ended questions give people time to reflect. For example, after delivering information, instead of asking, “Doesn’t anyone have any questions?” - a closed-ended question, ask: “What questions do you have?” This presupposes that people will have contributions that would be welcome.
Reverse Assumptions
Take a belief about your customer, your team, or your market—and flip it. What if the opposite were true? Wolfe Herd asked a bold question: What if women made the first move in dating? Her curiosity about flipping traditional gender roles in dating apps led to the creation of Bumble, now a multi-billion dollar platform with expansion into professional networking and friendship. In 2001, friends Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry brainstormed ways to re-think common, established consumer goods. They asked themselves, what if cleaning products didn’t have to be so harsh and dreary looking? Enter the Method brand.
Question the Unknown
Sometimes we need to ask many questions before we come up with a business strategy or new ideas to grow our company. When I am asked to help a client come up with innovation for their brand, we always start with what we know about the consumer today and what gaps in knowledge we have. We lay out all the questions that we believe will help us uncover interesting insights for us to leverage into innovation. Then we come up with a research plan, go into the field and ask many more questions.
Curiosity leads to creative problem-solving, new ideas, and strategic breakthroughs. The best leaders aren’t the ones with all the answers—they’re the ones brave enough to keep asking.
The phrase that we all know so well is often truncated; the full quote is: "Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back." The real quote suggests that being too inquisitive can lead to trouble or harm, but the satisfaction of finding answers can also be rewarding.
Stay curious leaders, and soon your team and your business will start jiving and thriving.