Creating Confident Leaders - Spirit of Curiosity

Hello everyone and I hope you have had a great summer (not over yet)!!

We took some time out in beautiful Cumbria to rest and recharge, its one of our favourite places on earth, a true soul place – so feeling refreshed now and ready to head into an exciting fall, doing more great stuff with all of you, helping you to raise your leadership bar😃

One of the things that I wanted to share with you this week is to think about the importance of leading with a spirit of curiosity …………….

Curiosity is one of the crucial strands of leadership, great leaders are always curious.  Curious about life, growth, relationships, innovation, their environment, themselves and always curious about how to make things better.

Two quotes from two of my most amazing clients, both great leaders, stand out for me. 

One is “I think I am just more curious than most people, I am always interested in the big things and the small, I just love understanding more in order to become more”.

The second “One of my new team asked me to let them know when I lost interest in something………………that amazed me, I never lose interest, I couldn’t.  I may disagree or find something difficult but I can’t imagine losing interest”.

Ian Leslie writes in his book Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends on It.

“The true beauty of learning stuff, including apparently useless stuff, is that it takes us out of ourselves, reminds us that we are part of a far greater project, one that has been under way for at least as long as human beings have been talking to each other. Other animals don’t share or store their knowledge like we do. Orangutans do not reflect on the history of the orangutan; London’s pigeons have not adopted ideas on navigation from pigeons in Rio de Janeiro. We should all feel privileged to have access to a deep well of species memory. As comedian Stephen Fry suggests, it’s foolish not to take advantage of it.”

So how do you keep your curiosity alive?

• Keep asking questions…….the human brain loves to question – even something you think you know a lot about will become fresh and vibrant for you if you pay attention and ask questions to deepen your understanding.

• Look for the fascination in everything. Take time to look around you and actively seek things that fascinate you.   Even the most mundane things can be interesting and wonderful if you look for their fascinating aspects.   Sometimes that means looking from a different angle.

This week I had the chance to do that with a place I know well.  Yesterday we were able to walk on the sandy part of beach near our lovely Cumbrian base.  This is rare, as Morecambe Bay (which some of you may know), is very beautiful but can be treacherous.  The tides are unpredictable and there are patches of quicksand throughout the Bay which shift about, so there are only certain times and conditions when it is safe to walk on the sand.  The Bay is vast and when its possible to walk on the sand you can see the coast from a very different angle.  I looked at cliffs and views that I have known for 6 years, and saw them very differently, I saw different colours, different shapes and a whole new perspective.  It was completely fascinating and reminded me of this point – look from different angles and look for the fascination.

• Use your imagination – play with scenarios, visualise, imagine new possibilities, daydream a little. Let your brain run on new lines with new ideas.  We get so busy doing that we forget to think, we forget that imagination is a gift and leaders must be imaginative, always curious, thinking beings as well as doing beings.   Mindfulness is a wonderful tool for quietening our busy brain, most of the leaders I know practice some form of mindfulness and allowing your imagination take you to new places is not a waste of time, its one of the most precious ways you can use your time.

So, allow the spirit of curiosity to help you to become a better leader and find more joy and spark within your leadership.

If you enjoyed this please sign up here to make sure you get all of my blogs and articles.