Feature


and someone uietl googling whateer framework their last eecutie coach used. he deate is erennial and genuinel unresoled. eending on the decade the sector and the consultant in the room the answer has ariousl een vision, emotional intelligence, resilience, authenticity, psychological safety or growth mindset. ach has its moment. hich is wh its worth aing


A


attention when something cuts across most of those frameworks and does so with growing emirical suort. hat something is curiosity. ot as a ersonalit trait or a talent rofile uirk ut as a learnale deeloale leadershi cometenc. ne that ma also haen to e eactl what the current moment demands.


This is not a new idea ut it is a newly urgent one. Humans hae alwas known instinctiel that wanting to understand things is aluale. schologist aniel erlne sent much of his career in the midth centur tring to make that instinct legile his concet of epistemic curiosity, the drie to seek knowledge for its own sake remains a foundational reference in the field. ut for most of the last centur organisations did their est to suress it anwa. alorist structures rewarded comliance. uestions were inefficiencies. he unsoken message was “know our o do it well leae the thinking to someone else”. hat model has een reaking down for decades. hat is different now is the pace.


What the research shows A  stud ulished in Personality and Individual Differences led  researchers at eorge ason niersit and alidated


sk an senior team to agree on what makes a great leader and ou will likel end u with a list, a disagreement,


across oth  and erman samles found that curiosit in the worklace is not a single thing ut a multidimensional one oful eloration sensitiit to the discomfort of notknowing tolerance for the stress of uncertaint and oenness to other eoles ideas. Across all dimensions curious emloees showed stronger creatie rolemsoling etter knowledgesharing and greater resilience under ressure. ruciall curiosit was not found to e fied. t resonded to enironment which means organisations can actiel cultiate it or uietl kill it. he longitudinal icture is where it


gets articularl interesting. uriosit comounds. A leader who kees asking uestions accumulates a more dierse knowledge ase sots atterns others miss and generates otions that more narrowl focused colleagues cannot. he entre for reatie eadershi has tracked eecutie derailment for decades wh caale higherforming leaders eentuall fail and the attern is remarkal consistent the rolem is rarel technical. t is adaptability whether or not one can udate ones thinking uickl enough when the situation changes. organ call and ichael omardos foundational research on this first ulished in  and relicated man times since found that leaders most at risk were those who had stoed learning. hat is at its root a curiosit failure.


Where AI changes the calculation eneratie A does not make curiosit redundant. t raises the stakes for it. hese tools can retriee snthesise and roduce at remarkale seed. hat the cannot do is notice what is strange aout a result hold roductie uncertaint or decide which uestion is worth asking in the first lace. hat last art knowing what to wonder aout is irreducil human. And it is a curiosit function. he orld conomic orums Future of Jobs Report, udated most recentl


ources erlne .. onict Arousal and uriosit crawHill  ashdan .. oodman .. isaato .. cnight ..  aughton . “uriosit has comrehensie enefits in the worklace eeloing and alidating the multidimensional work curiosit scale in nited tates and erman emloees” Personality and Individual Differences  call  omardo “ff the rack h and How uccessful ecuties et erailed” entre for reatie eadershi   uture of os eort  Am dmondson he earless rganiation .


in 2025, has placed analytical thinking, creative thinking, and resilience and eiilit at the to of the core skills emloers need now and names curiosit and lifelong learning among the skills rising fastest in imortance through . hese are not searate items on a list. he are oututs of curiosit. An emloee who neer asks “wh does this work this wa?” or “what are we missing?” will not suddenl ecome analticall shar ecause the hae een gien access to etter tools. his matters enormousl for how organisations think aout learning and deeloment. ending eole on courses is not enough. he deeer inestment is in the conditions that make curiosit ossile schological safet eosure to ideas outside ones immediate secialism leaders who model the hait of not knowing and erformance cultures that reward good uestions alongside good results.


The question worth asking Am dmondsons research on schological safet most accessil laid out in The Fearless Organization (2018), makes a related oint eole onl seak u elore and admit uncertaint when the feel safe enough to do so. uriosit without safet goes underground. t does not disaear it ust ecomes inisile to the organisation that most needs it. er generation of leaders has faced its ersion of the unknown. hat distinguishes those who naigate it from those who dont is rarel certaint. t is the willingness to sta roductiel in the uestion. hat is a leadershi cometenc. t can


e uilt. he organisations that understand this now will hae a considerale head start on those that figure it out later. n


Nahdia Khan, irector of asir onsulting is a strategic edtech and leadershi deeloment rofessional with  ears eerience uilding artnershis and shaing digital learning innoation.


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