Harvard Business Review — From Curious to Competent

A recent Egon Zehnder study found that curiosity is the best predictor of strength in all seven of the leadership competencies: results orientation, strategic orientation, collaboration and influence, team leadership, developing organizational capabilities, change leadership, and market understanding.

However, that curiosity needs to be developed into competency for potential leaders to advance to C-level roles. Egon Zehnder's Claudio Fernandez-Araoz, Andrew Roscoe, and Kentaro Aramaki studied executives' backgrounds, experiences, potential, and competence and found that the following experiences had the most impact on transforming curiosity into competence:

• Worked for more companies
• Served more diverse customers
• Worked abroad or on a multicultural team
• Experienced more business scenarios
• Managed larger teams

Overall, this is yet more evidence that although curiosity is a necessary ingredient for executive success, in itself it’s not enough.

Full Story: From Curious to Competent. By Claudio Fernandez-Araoz, Andrew Roscoe, Kentaro Aramaki