The shadow a leader casts on her/his team is often more important than one realises. Curious leaders uplift their teams, while incurious leaders stifle it. In this keynote, we will explore strategies for leaders to embrace curiosity and create high-performing, engaged, and motivated teams.
The shadow a manager casts on their team is one of the biggest drivers for productivity, engagement, and the feeling of well-being within the team. The managers who do this well, uplift the team. Those who don't, stifle it. The key to effective task management and people leadership is curiosity.
Curious leaders are good at operationalizing the present as well as securing the future. They create the psychological safety for the team to thrive. Curious leaders represent a high level of cognitive, empathic, and self-reflective curiosity. They are curious about the world around them, the people they work with, and their own internal conscious and unconscious drivers. They go out of their way to engage with their team, especially in times of crisis. They stretch their teams to excel in the present and to embrace the future; they are intentionally curious.
Not every manager is curious. Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino has found that while leaders often state that their organizations value curiosity at work, most stifle it through their culture, processes, and practices.
In this interactive session, we explore what we know about curiosity, why it is important for leaders, teams, and organizations, what the barriers are, and what leaders can do to get better at intentional curiosity for themselves and the people in their care.
