Former secretary of state Colin Powell says that “leadership is the ability to get someone to follow you even if only out of curiosity“.
This quote made me realize that in quite a few instances I had followed a leader more out of the curiosity to see what would happen than out of certainty that following the leader would be the right path. And indeed in those instances, it turned out not to be the easy way, still it was probably the most interesting experience.
There is somewhat of a contradiction between leadership and curiosity. One might think that curiosity is a personal attribute of the follower, while leadership is an ability of the leader. Of course, the leader can provoke curiosity. And possibly, by provoking curiosity, the most effective attraction mechanism is set up. So, the leader should provoke curiosity.
This has wide-ranging consequences compared to more traditional concepts of leadership. Maybe the leader should not paint a compelling vision, but rather instead make it the undefined object of an experiment, enticing curiosity and commitment from his followers.
Create curiosity to lead. An interesting concept that should certainly be developed further!
The quote is from Ben Horowitz book, ‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers‘
