There is Always More to See
In early July, I lost one of my closest friends from college, Louisa, in a bike crash. She was killed by a truck while riding to work, where she fought tirelessly as a city planner and transportation advocate to make Boston's streets safer for cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers alike. She was a light in the lives of so many and leaves an enormous void behind.
Of the many things I admired about Louisa, her curiosity made me marvel the most. I loved looking at what caught her attention, what she took pictures of, and what she said to those with whom she disagreed.
We moved through the world differently. I rarely take pictures and am often thinking about my to-do list instead of what's right in front of me. I will also typically go inward when presented with a conflict unless I am completely comfortable, but Louisa was the opposite. She photographed what most people walked past: a tree, my preschooler's Santa swim trunks hanging to dry, the way light hit a building, a drooping plant. When someone disagreed with her, she didn't become defensive. She became interested. She asked another question, not to convince them they were wrong, but because she genuinely wanted to understand. In my early days coaching, I found myself trying to borrow Louisa's way of seeing people. Before assuming I understood someone's experience, I'd ask another question.
As I’ve coached more leaders throughout the years, I’ve witnessed how curiosity is a superpower for both coaches and leaders alike. What surprised me was that the leaders who came to coaching rarely lacked answers though. More often, they had become trapped inside the first explanation they had given themselves such as I'm burned out. I'm not ready. I need to leave. I'm failing.
Curiosity slows certainty down. Instead of asking, "What's the solution?" it asks, "What's really happening here?" Instead of assuming we already know the story, it reminds us there may be another one waiting underneath.
Curiosity asks questions like:
What am I so busy trying to solve that I haven't stopped to understand?
What assumptions am I making that might not actually be true?
What would I notice if I approached this moment with curiosity instead of judgment?
Louisa lived this way instinctively through the way she noticed my son’s silly Santa swim trunks and the way she wanted to understand the person she disagreed with. She paid attention. Leadership requires something remarkably similar: noticing what's actually in front of you rather than rushing to the conclusion, solution, judgment or next thing. The strongest leaders I've worked with aren't the ones with the quickest answers. Instead, they're the ones who stay curious long enough to discover they were asking the wrong question. Maybe before we can lead anyone or anything else, staying curious in leadership requires us to look a little longer, to ask another question, and to resist believing we've already understood.
Because the moment we think we've seen everything is often the moment we stop noticing what matters most, silly Santa swim trunks and drooping plants included.
