InFrame

Written by Emma Wilson, Community Knowledge Analyst, InFrame project, University of Edinburgh

Being a curious leader

Sometimes being a leader feels like needing to have all the answers and being able to make snap judgements with ease. There’s a pressure (that may be perceived or real) to prove your worth and focus on providing solutions rather than asking questions. Uncertainty is almost always framed as a negative.

But more and more, we are challenging our view of what a leader looks like and redefining what it means to be a good leader. In this blog post, I reflect on curiosity as a key value in leadership within a research context. I draw from my own experiences in higher education, as a researcher who sought out leadership opportunities.

What does curious leadership look like?

In a leadership context, being curious means being open to diverse perspectives and actively listening to colleagues and the wider communities around you (Hubbard & Bewick, 2026). It involves admitting that as leaders we don’t come pre-installed with all the answers and that we need to ask questions and show empathy rather than rushing into making judgements (Hunter, 2025).

Being a curious leader also means being a brave leader; making space for tough but respectful conversations and honest feedback (Brown, 2018). Having clarity in communication is therefore another vital skill to being a supportive and inclusive leader (Unwin, 2026). Asking the right questions and actively listening to colleagues’ perspectives leads to better decision making. Being a curious leader helps teams ‘clash’ less and collaborate more, and creates a less hierarchical and more inclusive research culture.

Lack of curiosity, on the other hand, might be visible as assuming everyone is facing the same challenges, has access to the same resources, or holds the same priorities. It might also look like avoiding difficult topics because they make us uncomfortable (Brown, 2018). Although it may be unintentional, the impacts of lack of curiosity can lead to colleagues being excluded, unfairly treated or discriminated against. Therefore, we need to be open and respectful to feedback when we get things wrong.

How to be more curious

Our ability to be curious isn’t a fixed personality trait; it’s a skill that we can all cultivate (Moore, 2026). Things you can do to become more curious are:

• Pause and reflect. Before making a judgement, ask yourself why your approach or understanding might be different for someone else. Could there be information you’re missing?
• Be willing to be wrong. Getting defensive can be an instinctive reaction to encountering information that conflicts with what you previously believed. However, letting go of the need to be right to constantly prove your worth can help make space for us to be wrong sometimes.
• Go out and explore. Practicing curiosity is not an invitation to ask intrusive questions about people’s situations. Instead, go out and actively seek out new perspectives by reading material where colleagues are openly sharing their experiences, or attending seminars outside your department or organisation.
• Remember that everyone’s experiences are unique. Just because you’ve heard one person’s experience, or how someone else overcame a challenge, doesn’t mean it will be the same for everyone else.

How I became more curious

In a research context, sometimes it can feel like only senior academics are ‘allowed' to be leaders. However, postgraduate researchers and early career researchers are also leaders in their research and can have positive influences on research cultures (MacDonald, 2025).

During my PhD, I led the Edinburgh Open Research Initiative (EORI), a grassroots network aiming to support staff and students at the University of Edinburgh. When I started, I held a fixed, hierarchical view of what leadership looked like: managing a team, organising events, and being knowledgeable. But over time I started to see that leadership was much more about the environment I was creating and the collaboration I was inviting through my role.

As my role involved supporting researchers, I practiced curiosity by actively seeking out and listening to different perspectives, so that I could better understand what supports made the most impact. I paired this with reflexivity to consider my own biases and assumptions and evolve my approach as I learn. For me, curiosity, reflexivity, and learning are continual processes. I will never have all the answers, but I have the tools to ask the right questions, and I feel that has made me a better leader.