Lessons from a toddler
Kids are really amazing teachers. I think that we can learn so many lessons from them. More specifically lessons about leadership. The one I really want to focus on today is the lesson of how to respond to curiosity.
My toddler and others I have been around the last while, have really shone a light on how crucially important curiosity is in getting better and growing. The questions! Oh and they are relentless at times… Why is the grass green? What do you get when you mix blue and red? What colour is this? What is this strange hole in the middle of my tummy? Where do babies come from? etc..
But the curiosity also comes in different forms. Sometimes the curiosity comes in the form of testing boundaries (pushing their luck😊). Other times it is testing of theories – if I drop this egg what happens – splat the egg falls on the ground (and mom needs to clean it up).
They want to know more, they want to understand, they ultimately want to learn. I believe our response as parents plays a crucial role in how curious they remain. If the reward they get for testing gravity is a scolding, impatience and frustration, they will inevitably think twice before doing an experiment again. If the answer they get to their questions is “because”, they will eventually stop asking.
I believe that as leaders the same applies to our teams. If we as leaders choose the quick answer over the real one – people stop asking and make up their own minds. This often leads to incorrect assumptions and disengagement. If leaders are only allowing their teams to work within very strict criteria, never allowing them to test theories, and responding with blame and impatience when they don’t do it “right”, individuals and teams will eventually stop being creative, innovating or trying anything new.
As leaders we are responsible for how we react and respond to people and things that happen in our organisations, teams and families. We need to be mindful enough to realise that the behaviour we see is often the result of the example we set. We need to be deliberate and purposeful in aligning our reactions, subliminal messages and direct communication to the values we proport and want to see lived in our organizations. And we need to be open to feedback from our teams in order to get better ourselves. But we cannot get better if there is no curiosity about how we can improve, ourselves.
Being curious is the opposite of being stuck. As a leader you need to choose which you’d rather be…
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