Episode 02: How Curious Leaders Achieve Better Results
Why aren’t leaders more curious?
Is there space for encouraging more questions and exploratory curiosity in the business environments, over quick results?
“The business world is a graveyard of unasked questions...”
I discuss the challenges and opportunities of leading with curiosity with Wayne Reuben - founder and CEO of www.engage4performance.com - who has over 30 years of commercial leadership experience, building and leading teams across Asia Pacific markets. He shares his thoughts on what exists for reinvention in a curiosity-based leadership approach, and why everyone - including marketers - need to challenge the status quo to drive business results.
He also discusses candidly why surrounding himself with curious people is the most important thing any leader should do - and why he’s happy to be the least smart person in the room when that happens.
Key topics in this episode:
01:59 - Why having curious people around is critical for a Leader
04:00 - Leaders need to understand that curiosity isn’t just an inherent trait.
05:26 - Why people don’t speak up
08:26 - Great leadership is rare - the paradox of not being the smartest person in the room
13:28 - Encouraging curiosity does not mean risk losing control
16:38 - Every marketer should have a sign that says “if it doesn’t work, stop doing it”
25:27 - How curiosity make things better - as a team - not criticism
27:52 - How rebel curiosities drive competitive advantage
“My deepest curiosity always comes back to human behaviour... all commerce is about crafting offerings that other humans will eventually make a purchasing decision on. It is the behaviours of people that we need to be curious about.” ”
In our conversation, the concept of “Rebel Curiosities” is the unwillingness to accept status quo, an inherent desire to challenge from a good place, looking for better solutions. Any organisations with more rebel curiosities in their team will soon start to see better competitive advantage from true innovation - if they are courageous enough to do so.
Listen to the episode here: