Piggybacking on my colleague´s blog entitled: A Critical and often Overlooked Leadership Quality.... Curiosity by HR.com´s Leadership Analyst, Karen Elmhirst, I would also like to comment on curiosity.
Curiosity is certainly essential, especially in the way Karen describes it. Looking at the same topic from a different perspective, a caution is important here. Goal setting and performance management supports "focused" curiosity. In today´s age of vast quantities of information and unlimited ideas and perspectives, we need the framework of our goals and grounding principles to guide our work-related efforts. Curiosity can sometimes take us in too many directions that are not sustainable.
As work becomes increasingly "interdisciplinary," we will, I hope become more and more aware of how the work and impact of others affects our field of interest. Understanding these interrelationships is important, however, just as important will be our efforts to define individual areas of focus, providing direction and purpose and cultivating expertise.
Defining this focus during our performance planning process helps ensure that our curiosity is focused and time is well allocated.