Curiosity as the Core of Transformational Leadership
Leaders who stand out aren’t necessarily the ones with the best answers but those with the most insightful questions. Genuine curiosity—combined with active listening and a willingness to learn—turns leaders into innovators, coaches, and agents of change. Leaders' ability to ask the right questions is a critical leadership skill. Leaders who embrace curiosity and thoughtful questioning drive innovation, uncover new opportunities and empower their teams to solve problems creatively. By coaching employees through genuine curiosity and deep listening, leaders foster individual growth and build organizational capability. This article explores two powerful frameworks for questioning leadership: Hal Gregersen’s Questions Are the Answer and Warren Berger’s A More Beautiful Question. It also highlights the role of active listening and curiosity in coaching employees, creating a culture of inquiry, and solving complex challenges. Together, these approaches show how great leaders don’t just provide answers—they inspire growth by asking better questions.
The Role of Curiosity and Active Listening in Coaching Employees
Curiosity and active listening are foundational to coaching employees and fostering organizational growth. By focusing on asking thoughtful questions and truly listening to the responses, leaders can help employees unlock their potential and develop skills that drive individual and collective success.
How Curiosity Drives Effective Coaching
Curiosity allows leaders to explore employee perspectives, uncover their motivations, and guide them toward solutions they might not see on their own. Coaching through curiosity emphasizes growth and learning rather than providing directives.
Ask Open-Ended Questions: Questions like “What are you hoping to achieve?” or “What challenges are you facing?” encourage employees to reflect and articulate their goals.
Encourage Self-Discovery: By asking “What options have you considered?” or “What would success look like for you?”, leaders help employees explore solutions rather than imposing answers.
The Power of Active Listening
Active listening goes hand-in-hand with curiosity. It involves focusing entirely on the speaker, reflecting on their thoughts, and asking clarifying questions to deepen understanding. This builds trust and shows genuine interest in employees’ growth.
Practical Active Listening Tips:
1. Eliminate Distractions: Put aside devices and give full attention to the conversation.
2. Reflect and Clarify: Summarize what the employee has said to confirm understanding (e.g., “So what I’m hearing is…”).
3. Ask Follow-Up Questions: Probe deeper with questions like, “Can you tell me more about that?” or “What do you think is holding you back?”
Building Organizational Capability Through Coaching
When leaders use curiosity and active listening to coach employees, they create an environment where learning and innovation thrive. Coaching enhances organizational capability by:
1. Empowering Employees: Encouraging autonomy and problem-solving.
2. Developing Future Leaders: Guiding employees to think strategically and take ownership of their growth.
3. Fostering a Learning Culture: Creating a safe space for questions, experimentation, and continuous improvement.
Hal Gregersen’s Questions Are the Answer: Disruptive Questions for Breakthroughs
Hal Gregersen emphasizes that transformative breakthroughs often begin with disruptive questions—those that challenge assumptions, expose blind spots, and spark new ways of thinking. One of his key techniques for generating such questions is the Question Burst.
The Question Burst Technique
A structured exercise designed to explore challenges with curiosity:
1. Focus on a Specific Problem: Identify a challenge or issue to address.
2. Generate Questions, Not Solutions: Spend 15-20 minutes brainstorming as many questions as possible without judging or answering them.
3. Reflect and Act: Review the questions to identify new insights and reframe the problem.
Hal Gregersen’s Book: “Questions are the Answers” available on Amazon
Practical Example: Tackling Employee Turnover
One company, I had assisted in 2023 was struggling with high employee turnover, and decided to use the Question Burst technique, during one of their leadership team meetings. They began with the question: “How to address the challenge of so many employees leaving?”
In 20 minutes, the team generated dozens of disruptive questions, such as:
“What assumptions are we making about why people leave?”
“What do our longest-serving employees value most?”
“What if we completely redesigned our onboarding process?”
“Why aren’t we asking departing employees for feedback?”
Key Outcome: The team realized their onboarding process lacked personalization and follow-up, leading to disengagement. By reframing the problem, they introduced a mentorship program for new hires, reducing turnover by 12% within six months.
Key Takeaways from Gregersen:
Disruptive questions challenge existing norms and encourage teams to think differently.
Questions uncover blind spots, leading to new opportunities for growth.
Curiosity fosters action: Generating questions opens the door to innovation and experimentation.
Warren Berger’s A More Beautiful Question: Curiosity as a Driver of Change
Warren Berger builds on the power of questioning by introducing the concept of beautiful questions—questions that provoke deep reflection, challenge assumptions, and inspire meaningful change. He highlights a three-part framework to structure effective questioning: Why, What If, and How.
The Why-What If-How Framework
1. Why Questions: Uncover the root of a problem by challenging the status quo. Example: “Why do we always rely on the same marketing strategy?”
2. What If Questions: Spark creativity by imagining possibilities. Example: “What if we could engage our customers in entirely new ways?”
3. How Questions: Focus on practical implementation. Example: “How might we test this idea on a small scale?”
Practical Example: Reinventing Customer Engagement
A retail company struggling with declining customer loyalty applied Berger’s framework. They began with:
Why aren’t customers returning after their first purchase? This revealed that the post-purchase experience lacked follow-up and value.
From there, they asked:
What if we could make every customer feel like a VIP? This led to brainstorming personalized loyalty programs and exclusive content.
Finally, they asked:
How can we pilot this program quickly with our top 100 customers? The result was a small-scale trial that significantly increased repeat purchases.
Key Takeaways from Berger:
Beautiful questions spark creativity and exploration by reframing challenges.
Effective questioning inspires action, leading to practical, innovative solutions.
Curiosity fuels change: Asking “What if” opens the door to new possibilities.
Warren Berger’s Book: “A More Beautiful Question available on Amazon”
Case Study: Revitalizing Team Alignment and Strategy at XYZ Manufacturing Co.
Background: XYZ Manufacturing Co., a medium-sized manufacturer specializing in industrial tools, was facing internal misalignment among its leadership team, leading to stalled growth and inefficiencies. Market share had plateaued, and despite high demand for their products, operational bottlenecks and conflicting priorities among departments were holding the company back.
Recognizing the need for external guidance, the Divisional GM engaged me to facilitate a 1-day leadership team workshop, focused on Curiosity. The focus was on helping the team uncover hidden assumptions, reframe their challenges, and create actionable solutions using the frameworks from Questions Are the Answer and A More Beautiful Question.
Part 1: Building Awareness Through Curiosity
Empathy Interviews to Surface Core Issues
We started by conducting empathy interviews with key stakeholders, including department heads, production managers, and select customers. Each leader practiced active listening and asked open-ended questions such as:
“What are your biggest frustrations with our current processes?”
“What do you wish the leadership team understood about your role?”
“What could we do differently to improve communication and collaboration?”
Insights Gained:
Department Silos: Each department prioritized its goals over company-wide objectives, leading to inefficiencies.
Lack of Strategic Clarity: Employees reported conflicting directives from leaders, creating confusion and delays.
Customer Experience Gaps: Customers highlighted inconsistent lead times and a lack of proactive communication.
Applying Hal Gregersen’s Question Burst
To dig deeper, we conducted a Question Burst exercise focused on the challenge: “Why is the leadership team struggling to align on priorities?”
Over 20 minutes, the team generated disruptive questions without attempting to answer them. Key questions included:
“Why are departmental goals misaligned with company strategy?”
“What assumptions are we making about how we communicate priorities?”
“What if we eliminated traditional performance metrics and focused on collaboration?”
“How might we create a shared vision that resonates with every team?”
Outcome: The exercise revealed that the root cause wasn’t just poor communication but a lack of a unified strategy. Each leader was operating from their own perspective, with no shared understanding of long-term goals.
Part 2: Reframing Challenges and Co-Creating Solutions
Using Warren Berger’s Beautiful Questions to Reframe
In Part 2 of the 1-day workshop, we introduced Warren Berger’s Why-What If-How framework to help the team reframe their challenges and explore practical solutions.
Why Questions:
What If Questions:
How Questions:
Prototyping and Testing New Strategies
The team decided to pilot two initiatives to improve collaboration and alignment:
Monthly Strategy Syncs: A recurring meeting for department heads to review progress, share updates, and ensure alignment with overarching company goals.
Team Collaboration Metrics: Introduction of a few simple, shared KPIs focused on improving communication and reducing operational bottlenecks.
To ensure buy-in, these initiatives were tested over three months with a smaller group of managers before expanding company-wide.
Results and Reflection
After six months of testing:
Operational Delays Reduced: Communication between departments improved, leading to a modest but solid 5% decrease in lead times.
Greater Leadership Alignment: Department heads reported better clarity and coordination during strategy reviews.
Improved Employee Morale: Teams appreciated the increased transparency and felt more engaged in aligning with the company’s direction.
Key Learnings from the Leadership Team
“What assumptions did we challenge?” Leaders acknowledged that they had been operating under the assumption that departmental independence was more effective than collaboration.
“What will we do differently moving forward?” They committed to maintaining monthly strategy syncs and revisiting shared KPIs quarterly to ensure continuous alignment.
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PRActical Recommendations for Leaders
1. Use Question Bursts for Problem-Solving: When faced with a challenge, dedicate time to generating disruptive questions. Focus on uncovering assumptions and reframing the problem.
2. Adopt the Why-What If-How Framework: Apply this structure to guide brainstorming and innovation sessions. Start with “Why” to understand the issue, move to “What If” to spark ideas, and finish with “How” to plan action.
3. Create a Questioning Culture:
Encourage curiosity by rewarding team members who ask bold questions.
Model questioning behaviors in meetings and decision-making.
Build psychological safety to ensure all voices are heard.
Leading with the Power of Questions
The best leaders don’t have all the answers—they have the courage to ask better questions. By integrating Gregersen’s disruptive questions and Berger’s beautiful questions, alongside curiosity and active listening, leaders can inspire innovation, build organizational capability, and drive meaningful change. Leadership begins with curiosity and the willingness to explore new possibilities.