I’m a naturally curious person. I love exploring new ideas, looking for experiences that may change my world view, and learning more about subjects I’m not familiar with. Feeding that curiosity is important to me, as I’m aware it’s a habit that builds perseverance, potential and performance.
Research by Andrew Roscoe, Kentaro Aramaki and Claudio Fernández-Aráoz from global management consulting and leadership advisory firm @EgonZehnder has found that fostering curiosity also helps to create future leaders.
In a study of 20 actual general managers, although all were rated as extraordinarily curious, only half reached the top level of competence. The other half were at the bottom.
What separated them were the opportunities they had been given to develop their curiosity, such as varied roles, working overseas and managing large teams. (See the graph printed in @hbr.)
It’s clear that when given the right experiences, managers will shine. But if organisations do not offer stretch assignments and job rotations, they risk losing their best people.
As leaders, are you doing enough to cultivate the leaders of the future?
