Elevate Your Excellence
One of the most memorable scenes in Ted Lasso has nothing to do with football. Ted is playing darts with Rupert, Rebecca’s ex-husband, who has spent much of their interaction assuming Ted is exactly what he appears to be: a cheerful American who is hopelessly out of his depth.
Then Ted starts hitting dart after dart.
Curiosity in leadership starts with noticing the difference between what happened and the story we tell ourselves about it.
As he does, he talks about how often people underestimated him because they were too busy judging him to become curious about him. If they had asked questions, he explains, they might have learned something before deciding who he was.
It is a satisfying scene because Rupert deserves the loss, but it also captures something I see repeatedly in leadership coaching: people rarely respond only to what happened. They respond to the story they have built around what happened.
Curiosity in Leadership: Separate Facts From Interpretation
An employee misses a deadline. That is information. “He clearly doesn’t care enough about this project” is interpretation.
A colleague challenges your recommendation during a meeting. That happened. “She is trying to undermine me” is interpretation.
Your CEO sends a two-word response to an email you spent thirty minutes writing. Your brain may immediately offer, “She’s irritated with me.” Maybe she is, or maybe she is walking into another meeting and that was all the time she had.
One of the reasons this matters so much in cognitive behavioral work is that the meaning we attach to an event influences everything that comes next. If I decide someone is challenging me because they do not respect me, my nervous system and my behavior prepare for conflict. I may become sharper, more defensive, or less willing to listen. If I interpret the same question as a legitimate request for clarification, I show up differently.
The facts did not change. My interpretation did.
Stay Curious Without Ignoring Patterns
Ted is unusually good at remaining interested in people even when their behavior gives him plenty of reasons to write them off. Jamie is arrogant, but Ted stays curious about what sits underneath the arrogance. Roy is angry and resistant, but Ted does not treat anger as the complete story. Even with Rebecca, who is quietly sabotaging him during much of the first season, Ted keeps responding to the person rather than reducing her to the behavior he sees.
This does not make him naïve, although he sometimes gets close. Curiosity does not require leaders to ignore patterns, tolerate poor behavior, or talk themselves out of an accurate conclusion. Sometimes your employee is disengaged. Sometimes a colleague is playing politics. Sometimes someone is, in fact, trying to undermine you.
The point is not to assume everyone has good intentions. The point is to know the difference between evidence and conclusion.
Why Pressure Makes Assumptions Feel Like Facts
That distinction becomes even more important under pressure because the brain loves certainty when it feels threatened. Executives make decisions all day with incomplete information, and yet our brains still want to close the loop quickly. We want to know who is responsible, what something means, whether someone can be trusted, and whether a situation is dangerous.
The faster we move from “I don’t know yet” to “I know exactly what this is,” the more likely we are to eliminate useful information.
Questions That Build Cognitive Flexibility
This is where I often introduce very simple questions in coaching: What do you know for certain? What are you assuming? What else could explain this? What information would change your interpretation?
Those are not complicated questions, but they create cognitive flexibility, and cognitive flexibility is a significant performance advantage.
Practicing curiosity in leadership creates space to test an assumption before it drives a decision.
When Taking Over Creates Team Dependency
Take the executive who thinks, “If I don’t step in, this project will fall apart.” That belief may lead her to take control immediately. Perhaps the project improves, which seems to prove she was right. But the team also learns that when the stakes rise, she will take over. They become more cautious about making decisions without her. Six months later, she has exactly the team dependency she feared.
A more curious response might have sounded like: “What specifically makes me think they cannot handle this? Where are they actually stuck? Do they need me to take over, or do they need clearer boundaries, resources, or coaching?”
Now she has options.
That is one of the functions of executive coaching that I think gets misunderstood. I am not there to give the leader the “right” interpretation. I am often there to slow down the point at which an interpretation becomes a fact. That pause can change a great deal.
Earn Your Conclusions Before Acting
The darts scene works because Rupert enters the interaction certain that he understands Ted. Ted has spent much of his life around people who make that same mistake.
Most leaders will never have their assumptions exposed quite so theatrically. They will show up in smaller ways, in who gets trusted, who gets promoted, whose ideas are taken seriously, and whose behavior gets interpreted generously versus critically.
Curiosity does not mean indecision. It means earning your conclusion before acting on it.
That is a leadership skill worth practicing.
Put Curiosity Into Practice
Ready to strengthen curiosity in leadership and question the assumptions shaping your decisions? Dr. Robin Buckley helps leaders recognize unhelpful thinking patterns and practice more intentional responses at work.
Contact Insights Group South or schedule a conversation with Dr. Robin to explore executive coaching.
