Why Curiosity Is the Most Underrated Leadership Skill

There's a leadership quality that research consistently identifies as one of the most powerful drivers of team performance, innovation, and organizational adaptability. It isn't strategic thinking. It isn't charisma. It isn't even resilience, although that comes close.

It's curiosity. And most organizations are actively suppressing it.

Francesca Gino, a professor at Harvard Business School, conducted a survey of more than 3,000 employees across a wide range of companies and industries. The findings were stark: only 24% of respondents said they regularly feel curious in their jobs. Seventy percent reported facing barriers to asking more questions at work. The curiosity wasn't missing from the people. It was being squeezed out by the culture.

I think about this statistic often in my work. One of the through-lines of everything I do -- whether it's creating art, delivering keynotes, or working with organizations on creative thinking -- is the conviction that the most valuable skill in uncertain times isn't knowing the answer. It's being willing to ask a better question.

The Business Case Is Overwhelming

The research on curiosity's impact in organizations is remarkably consistent across sources, industries, and methodologies.

A field study conducted by INSEAD, the French business school, found that a one-unit increase in curiosity on a seven-point scale was associated with 34% greater creativity. Not a marginal improvement -- a substantial leap in the ability to generate novel, useful ideas.

SAS's Curiosity@Work report surveyed nearly 2,000 managers globally and found that 72% believe curiosity is a very valuable trait in employees. Fifty-nine percent strongly agree that curiosity drives real business impact. Fifty-one percent say employees who exhibit more curiosity tend to be higher performers. When managers were asked about the tangible benefits, the numbers were consistently strong: 62% said curiosity improves efficiency and productivity, 62% said it improves creative thinking, 58% said it strengthens collaboration and teamwork, and 58% said it increases employee engagement and job satisfaction.

The same report found a striking internal comparison: managers who rate high on SAS's Curiosity Index are nearly twice as likely to classify their direct reports' performance as very strong -- 72% versus 43% among low-curiosity managers. Curious leaders don't just perform better themselves. They create conditions where everyone around them performs better.

A 2022 study by Thompson and Klotz, published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, demonstrated the mechanism: when leaders display curiosity, their employees feel greater psychological safety and are more likely to speak up at work. Curiosity from the top signals that questioning is welcome, that not-knowing is acceptable, and that exploration is valued alongside execution.

Why Organizations Kill Curiosity (Even When They Say They Value It)

If curiosity is so valuable, why is it so rare in the workplace? Gino's research points to a consistent pattern: leaders value efficiency over exploration. In her survey, she found that leaders' mindsets "often shy away from encouraging curiosity because they believe the company would be harder to manage if people were allowed to explore their own interests."

The Global Curiosity Institute's research surfaces a telling gap: leaders are twice as likely as their employees to say that their organization supports curiosity. In other words, leaders think they're encouraging curiosity; employees disagree. The gap isn't one of intent -- it's one of behavior. Leaders may believe in curiosity conceptually while unconsciously penalizing it in practice: cutting off questions in meetings, rewarding speed over exploration, signaling impatience with uncertainty.

The SAS report found that after three years in the same role, an employee's curiosity measurably diminishes. Middle-level managers are approximately four times less positive about curiosity than team leads or senior executives. The structure of most organizations -- with its emphasis on efficiency, predictability, and role definition -- gradually trains curiosity out of the people who need it most.

I saw this dynamic at Google, where I worked as a product marketing manager on products reaching 86 million users. Google was genuinely better than most companies at protecting space for curiosity -- the 20% time policy being the most famous example. But even there, the gravitational pull toward execution and output was strong. The culture had to be actively maintained against the natural tendency of organizations to optimize for efficiency at the expense of exploration.

What Curious Leadership Actually Looks Like

A 2025 qualitative study from the University of Pennsylvania, based on in-depth interviews with senior executives, reframed curiosity not as a fixed personality trait but as "a dynamic and contextually responsive capacity that can be deliberately cultivated." The study found that curiosity acts as a "crucial catalyst in leadership, empowering leaders to drive innovation and lead changes, motivate and develop talent, and stay centered amidst pressure and chaos."

This reframing matters because it means curiosity isn't something you either have or don't. It's something you practice. And like any practice, it requires deliberate choices.

Satya Nadella demonstrated this when he took over as CEO of Microsoft and shifted the company's culture from what he described as a "know-it-all" culture to a "learn-it-all" culture. The shift was not about acquiring new information. It was about changing the organization's fundamental posture toward uncertainty -- from one of defending existing knowledge to one of actively seeking what it didn't yet understand. The results were transformative for Microsoft's innovation, collaboration, and market position.

Gino recommends five strategies for leaders: hire for curiosity, model inquisitiveness, emphasize learning goals, let employees explore and broaden their interests, and create dedicated "Why?" and "What if?" and "How might we?" sessions. The through-line is that curiosity needs both permission and practice. It needs leaders who ask questions publicly, who demonstrate that not-knowing is acceptable, and who create structures that protect exploration time.

How I Think About Curiosity in My Own Work

As Tucker Bryant, my entire creative practice is built on curiosity as a method. When I flew a stranger to the Philippines to deliver a poem, I didn't know what would happen. When I hid a poem inside a computer journal for an unknown reader to find, I was following a question rather than an answer. When I developed "Write By Erasing" -- creating poetry by removing words from a page rather than adding them -- I was exploring what would happen if I reversed the fundamental assumption of how writing works.

Each of these projects was an act of curiosity. And each produced something I couldn't have predicted, planned, or optimized my way toward. This is the lesson I bring into organizational work: that the most valuable creative outputs emerge not from having the right answer but from being willing to follow the right question.

Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki wrote: "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few." The practice of leadership curiosity is the practice of maintaining a beginner's mind -- not by abandoning expertise, but by refusing to let expertise close the door on what you haven't yet considered.

"Tucker was the most meaningful hour of our event in 30 years of hosting events." -- Mark Brezinski

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is curiosity important in leadership?
Research from Harvard Business School (Francesca Gino) shows that curiosity leads to fewer decision-making errors, more innovation, reduced group conflict, and better team performance. A 2022 study in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes found that leader curiosity directly increases employee psychological safety and voice behavior. SAS's global survey of nearly 2,000 managers found that curious leaders' teams are nearly twice as likely to be classified as high-performing.

How does curiosity drive innovation in the workplace?
A field study by INSEAD found that a one-unit increase in curiosity on a seven-point scale was associated with 34% greater creativity. SAS's Curiosity@Work report found that 62% of managers say curiosity is especially valuable when innovating new solutions. Curiosity drives innovation by encouraging exploration of alternatives, reducing confirmation bias, and creating psychological safety for sharing unconventional ideas.

How can leaders foster curiosity in their organizations?
Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino recommends five strategies: hire for curiosity, model inquisitiveness by asking questions publicly, emphasize learning goals alongside performance goals, let employees explore and broaden their interests, and create dedicated time for open-ended questioning. The SAS report found that organizations successful at nurturing curiosity invest in training (79%), promote curious employees (74%), and prioritize curiosity in hiring (74%).

Why do organizations suppress curiosity despite valuing it?
Research shows a significant perception gap: leaders are twice as likely as employees to say their organization supports curiosity (Global Curiosity Institute). Gino's survey of 3,000 employees found that 70% face barriers to asking more questions at work. The primary driver is that leaders value efficiency over exploration, fearing that curiosity will be difficult to manage and will slow down decision-making.

If your organization is ready to build curiosity into its leadership culture, I'd love to explore what that might look like. Reach out here.