A word that has come up regularly in conversations lately is 'curiosity.' There are plenty of old sayings that paint curiosity as a bad thing, but is it really? And what does it look like in practice? We dug into the research to explore its links to wellbeing and spoke with a leader who has embraced curiosity as a key leadership trait.
So, What is curiosity exactly?
Lievens, Harrison, Mussel, and Litman (2022) define curiosity as "the desire to know, activated by novelty, ambiguity, or complexity, that motivates rewarding exploratory behaviour to learn and fill pressing knowledge gaps."
Put simply, it's the drive to seek out new information, experiences, and perspectives, which is a valuable quality in our increasingly complex business world.
Studies show that curiosity leads to positive outcomes at work. Mussel (2013) found that curiosity strongly predicted job performance, even after accounting for factors like general intelligence and personality traits. Curious employees are more likely to seek new information, solve problems creatively, and adapt to change.
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