Stay Curious

What sparks your curiosity?

Do you see part of the job of a leader as staying curious?

I've been working at staying curious as much as possible instead of choosing to judge. Our backgrounds might make it easier to judge, but as high performance leaders we get much more value out of staying curious. Curious about:

How people react to our goals
What people are looking for
Our customer's needs
The emotions behind a position
The position behind an emotion
How our team members can bring their whole selves to work
The real causes of the problems we work to solve
The best steps to take to achieve our goals
Why people say what they do
Why people believe what they believe...

The list is endless. We can choose at any moment to stay curious. If the need to judge emerges ("does that make sense? Is that good for me?") we have plenty of time to make that choice as well. Staying curious keeps our possibilities open and dramatically improves our influence because once people know that we are open to their ideas, they become much more open to ours.

It doesn't matter how passionate we are about our ideas if no one adapts them. We need more than our own energy on an idea, on a goal. We need the energy of others.

Curiosity is often more useful than passion.

Why not practice a bit more curiosity today? Are you curious about how it will work?

-- Doug Smith

Front Range Leadership: High performance leadership training

doug smith training: how to achieve your goals

Comments

High Performance Leadership Combination

We can rationalize anything without making it justified. Leaders should always ask: who is this good for other than me? High performance leadership does NOT mean performance at any cost. It means performance that serves a noble cause while also benefiting people. High performance leadership is a combination. Results without relationships are shallow and temporary. Take care of both, and you'll be a high performance leader. -- doug smith

New Ideas

New ideas won't break you but they can make you bigger. -- doug smith

Your Reputation

More authority means higher levels of responsibility. More power requires more service to others, not less. What you do with your power is who you will be known as. Also, how you use the power you have creates who people will remember you as. How do you want to be remembered? -- doug smith

Start With Kindness

When you start with kindness you don't have to stay there, but you probably will. It works better for others. It works better for you. If you're human, you'll probably relapse. It does take practice to stay the course. The course starts by starting. When you start with kindness, it becomes more naturally the way. High performance leadership develops from the core leadership strengths of clarity, creativity, courage, and compassion. Build one of those strengths today thru some act of kindness and the others will get stronger as well. -- doug smith

What You Need

Use what you've learned to become what you need. -- doug smith

For example

Get good at something that won't obsolete itself. For example: emotional intelligence creating great conversations encouraging people leadership What would you add to the list? Which ones are you developing? -- doug smith

Decide

What do you want? Are you getting what you want? Intention is direction. Decide. And, then go. -- doug smith

Personally

Improving performance does require us to take our work seriously. But it does not require us to take ourselves too seriously. Taking things personally is a waste of self-esteem. -- doug smith

Measures Matter

Some people measure quantify first and quality later. Some people measure money first and impact to the team later (not even second!). How you measure productivity might determine your character and your reputation. Put people first. -- doug smith

Show Integrity

The goals we seek bring a lot of pull to them. We get wrapped in them. It's useful and it's powerful when we care about our goals so much that they propel us forward and keep us working even when we're tired, beyond the boundaries of our usual limitations. But they should not take us beyond the boundaries of our usual values. They should not trick us into bending the rules just because the rules are in the way. Truly high performance leaders of character who are focused, and centered, and noble maintain integrity. No cheating is ever worth the outcome. Integrity is so rare that many people don't even recognize. If you do, be thankful. We need leaders like you. To truly understand integrity you've got to keep it. Even when it's hard. Even the lines are blurred. -- doug smith

High Performance Leadership

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