In this constantly changing world that demands ongoing learning, the single most important trait to have as a professional is curiosity. What can you as a leader do to encourage and cultivate curiosity in your team? In today’s post, Pete poses that question and invites you to explore with him.
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I was working with a group recently on networking skills and business development communication training, and early in the session I introduced the idea of being genuinely curious about other people. Curiosity helps you learn about them, understand them, and build stronger professional relationships. In that moment, someone raised a brave and vulnerable question: “What if you just don’t care about other people?” The room laughed, and we moved on—but that question deserved more attention than it got.
The truth is, not everyone naturally feels curious. Some people don’t experience an internal pull to ask about others, and they’re comfortable focusing on what they already know. That doesn’t make them bad teammates—it just means they haven’t practiced curiosity as a leadership or networking skill.
Curiosity isn’t something you’re born with; it’s something you develop. Some people grow up in environments where asking questions is encouraged. Others grow up in settings where curiosity wasn’t valued or modeled. So if someone isn’t naturally curious, it simply means they haven’t had space to practice it. This is where leadership presence coaching, networking coaching, and communication support become incredibly helpful.
For leaders, the real question becomes: how do you help your team cultivate curiosity? How do you make it feel natural—and rewarding—to learn about others?
Being curious leads to asking questions. Asking questions leads to getting better at asking questions. And improving the skill of questioning is one of the most valuable tools in networking training, sales pitch coaching, and business development coaching.
As a leader, consider how you might:
When your team becomes more curious—and therefore better at learning about others—they build stronger, more relevant professional relationships. And the more relevant relationships your organization has, the more your business development efforts thrive. Networking isn’t about schmoozing; it’s about learning. Curiosity is the engine behind that learning, and like any leadership skill, it can be developed with coaching, practice, and support.
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