Week 18: Stay Curious About Others

Welcome to Week 18 of the Authenticity@Work Leadership Tool-kit! My intention for this series is to share a quick tool each week to help you lead with more authenticity, adaptability and inspiration so we can together create workplaces where we bring the best of ourselves and inspire others. So grab a journal and an accountability partner to make these practices even more powerful for you!

<p>In last week’s post we discussed the importance of getting to know your own personal saboteurs and allies. Have you cultivated and gotten to know your allies?

As we become increasingly self-aware and grounded in ourselves, it is important for us to also practice staying curious about others. We want to pay attention to their evolving strengths, their energizers, their values. We also want to see with an open mind who they are being in this moment rather than an outdated snapshot of them we are carrying around in our minds. We often create a judgment of people based on our prior experience of them, and it becomes a fixed etching in our minds that prevents us from experiencing them in the moment. This is because our commentary (positive or negative) about them dominates our experiences of them. Our minds have a tendency to throw out any new experience that is inconsistent with our prior beliefs. Seeing people with a “beginner’s mind” (openness to a fresh perspective) allows us to invite their best contributions to the workplace. It can call forth a potential that they perhaps are not even aware of within themselves.

Importantly, if you want to be truly influential as a leader in your organization, discover the dreams of others you work with. It will surely be the key to engaging them and getting the best of who they want to be. The key to staying curious – whether it is for ourselves or others – is to stay open to learning new things—to know that there is much yet to learn because people evolve and have lots of facets. In our fast-moving world and fast-moving minds, it is often easier to come to conclusions than stay with questions. My urge here is for you to stay with the question.

This Week’s Tool:

Question to ask yourself: In what ways am I already great at being curious? Journal about your findings.

Get the latest resources for Authenticity@Work (this tab will get updated with all kinds of cool resources). Curious to know more about the book? Read the reviews about Wired for Authenticity here.

This article was written by Henna Inam, C-level executive coach, global speaker, and author of the book Wired for Disruption. She helps leaders grow their agility to be a force for good and thrive in times of change. They create organizations that drive breakthroughs in innovation, growth, and engagement. In roles including Head E-Innovation and Chief Innovation and Marketing Officer, Henna drove transformation throughout her 20-year corporate career as an executive with Fortune 500 companies. Join the thousands who follow her blog here. Connect on Linkedin.