Effective Leaders Stay Curious
(Substack Newsletter February 18, 2025)
I am curious about everything. By nature. I love to learn and explore what I don’t understand and don’t know anything about. Including people. I talk to strangers all the time. I love listening to their stories and getting a brief glimpse into their life journey, even during a quick chat in the grocery store. That’s how I met the person who’s advertising team came up with the slogan, “America Runs on Dunkin’.” (They wrote ideas on yellow post-its and stuck them on the wall. That was the winner.) And the man who who spent 6 decades making maple syrup because at age 8 he was bored and decided to gather a bucket of sap from the nearby woods and boil it over a fire. I even sat next to a famous NCAA men’s basketball coach at my son’s high school game and talked to him for two quarters before I realized who he was. Basketball never came up—just notes on parenting.
When curiosity is activated, you ask why. Ask how. Ask to know more. You want to hear more ideas. Explore more thoughts and information. You question things. You listen in order to understand. Nurturing curiosity is how you move yourself and your life forward. It’s how kids and teens learn best in school, in social settings and within themselves. Curiosity is essential to a healthy life. Healthy families, healthy relationships, communities, and countries. It is the common and essential quality among healthy and effective leaders. We are all leaders of our own lives.
Read about Rosa Parks here. A stellar example of a powerful leader who practiced yoga and Buddhist meditation to bolster her wellbeing which enabled her to sustain her life-altering work and create global impact.
Can you learn to be more curious? Yes. Of course. You can start with mindfulness. Mindfulness is circular practice that begins and ends with curiosity about yourself as you experience the present moment. Curiosity exists in the present moment. And by nature, exists without judgment. That’s the definition of mindfulness. And the gateway to all its healthy benefits.
Here’s a simple practice that’s the same for you and for any child in your life. I call it The 4-C’s of Breathe Move Journal: Curiosity, Connection, Creativity, and Confidence.
STEP 1:
Notice a feeing and/or body sensation in the present moment with CURIOSITY. No judgement. Feelings and body sensations are just information about what’s happening as we experience something in the now. I notice I feel butterflies in my belly. I notice I feel lot of anger. I notice I feel so happy. I notice a tingling. I notice I have no feeling.
STEP 2
CONNECT to what you notice (the information presenting as feeling and/or body sensation) with breathing, moving and/or journaling. Using these evidence-based tools to connect to yourself helps you regulate your nervous system, soften challenging emotions, absorb joyful experiences, and enables you become more and more comfortable feeling discomfort.
Managing feelings of discomfort is part of being curious, part of learning and necessary for growth. (Note: any feeling can spark discomfort including feelings of calm, excitement and joy.) Humans are designed to feel discomfort around change and the unknown. So managing discomfort is essential. Otherwise, you can be derailed along your path. That’s ok. It’s human. (The path forward is rarely smooth.) You can notice that, too. Connect by breathing, moving and/or journaling. There is no perfection. No judgment. It’s a practice designed to support you in continuing to try. Not to reach a destination. Just to try.
STEP 3
Once you connect to the present moment and use a tool to manage whatever has shown up, your reward is an open door to CREATIVITY. Including creative problem solving, making better choices, productive communication, innovative thinking, and novel ideas. Creativity is where the freedom to be curious and connect without judgment blossom into learning through courageous and unencumbered exploration.
STEP 4
As the practice of curiosity and connection leads to creative exploration, magic happens. (It’s science really. But it feels like magic.) You build CONFIDENCE. Confidence to be more curious. To ask: What don’t I understand or know? What did I learn? What else can I try? Do I need to ask for help? Can I help others? What do I need? What is the best solution? Tell me more.
Why does this happen? Because your confidence is built on a self-directed practice you have agency over. One that you can replicate. That’s empowering. Strengthening. Regulating. For anyone. It offers kids and adults a foundation for life-long learning through a practice of connecting to themselves. CONFIDENCE enables you to be more curious. You are back to the top of the circle. Learning begins, and begins again, with CURIOSITY.
Mindfulness isn’t magic. It’s evidence-based in science. And it’s a practice. Like anything you practice, you can become more and more skilled at it. When you recognize the leader within yourself and have a practice for accessing it, you can learn to recognize the qualities of a true leader in others. Kids and teens can also learn what effective leadership looks like by first locating it within themselves — using the 4-C’s.
It lights me up to learn something I didn’t know—especially about other human beings. It can be heart breaking, too. Or infuriating. Or confusing. Messy. And always, always interesting. Expanding understanding enriches you as a person, deepens relationships, gives nuance and depth to your work, and boosts the fun you can have engaging with the world outside what you already know. Curiosity is the path leading to the world outside your comfort zone. That’s where everyone learns. And if nowhere else, we are all leaders of our own lives. Be curious. Explore. Expand. Then be curious some more. It’s a practice. For life.
(PS: Research shows that people who remain curious, seek new experiences, keep a sense of wonder, and exhibit novelty-seeking behavior STAY YOUNG.)
Curious to know what you think! Elizabeth