_{Great leaders stand out because of their willingness to be genuinely curious, their ability to assemble cognitively diverse teams, and their commitment to making work meaningful. In this retrospective episode, we're pulling together the most impactful leadership insights from 2025 conversations with world-class experts including David Livermore, Colin Fisher, Wes Adams, Tamara Miles, and more.}

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The Leadership Skills That Actually Matter

If you've been paying attention to organizational research over the past few years, you've probably noticed a pattern. The research keeps pointing back to three core abilities: curiosity, the capacity to build diverse teams, and the skill to create meaningful work.

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Think about the last difficult conversation you had at work. Maybe it was about a controversial topic, a disagreement on strategy, or feedback that was hard to give or receive. Now think about what would've made that conversation more productive. According to David Livermore, bestselling author of Leading with Cultural Intelligence, the answer is surprisingly simple, genuine curiosity. "Curiosity is a superpower when it comes to navigating difficult conversations," Livermore explains. When you're innately curious about how someone arrived at their perspective, rather than trying to defend your own position or prove you're smarter, you ask questions that open doors to understanding.

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This isn't soft skill territory. Curiosity, team composition, and meaningful work directly correlate with business outcomes. Organizations that get these right see measurable improvements in overall performance. 

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Why Curiosity Is Your Competitive Advantage in a Complex World

You probably already know that curiosity is important. But most people miss the fact that curiosity is about how you show up in conversations where disagreement exists.

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David Livermore's research, developed over 20+ years, identifies curiosity and openness as the number one predictors of cultural intelligence (CQ). That’s important because as workplaces become increasingly complex, cultural intelligence is essential. And the entry point is curiosity.

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But even though cultivating curiosity is possible, it's genuinely difficult. If you're not naturally curious, building this skill requires deliberate effort. So why bother? Because when you ask someone, "How did you arrive at that perspective?" instead of immediately defending your position, something shifts. The conversation moves from debate to dialogue. You might actually learn something.

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Consider a polarizing topic like COVID-19 vaccinations, the kind of subject that can derail meetings and damage relationships. Livermore uses this as an example precisely because it's so charged. When you approach someone with genuine curiosity about how they came to their conclusion, rather than assuming you know their motives or judging their intelligence, you create space for real conversation.

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"When we are innately curious, rather than trying to defend our position or prove we are smarter, we can ask really powerful curiosity-based questions" 

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This is the foundation for cultural intelligence, which is increasingly being recognized as a core leadership competency, not a soft skill.

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Building High-Performing Teams Starts With Social Sensitivity

Most organizations think about team composition the wrong way. They focus on getting the smartest people in the room, assuming raw intelligence is the primary driver of team success. Colin Fisher, author of The Collective Edge and organizational psychologist at University College London, has spent years studying what actually makes teams perform. His findings challenge conventional wisdom.

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Social sensitivity, your ability to pick up on what people are thinking and feeling through their nonverbal cues, tone, and energy, is one of the strongest predictors of team success. It's more reliable than individual IQ. Think about that for a moment. You can have a room full of brilliant people who don't understand each other. Or you can have a team of capable people who genuinely sense what others are thinking and feeling, who adjust accordingly, and who create psychological safety through presence and attunement.

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Fisher's research also reveals that before you even get to psychological safety, you need cognitive diversity. The distinction is psychological safety is important, you need people to feel safe sharing different views. But if everyone in the room thinks the same way, psychological safety doesn't help you. You'll all validate each other's assumptions and miss blind spots.

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Todd Kashdan, professor of psychology at George Mason University and author of The Art of Insubordination, makes this point directly. Get cognitively diverse people in the room first, then create the conditions like psychological safety, where those different perspectives can actually be heard and valued.

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This changes how you build teams. Instead of asking, "Are these people smart enough?" you ask two questions: "Do we have cognitive diversity? And what conditions need to be in place so we can excavate the awesome different perspectives sitting around this table?"

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Creating Meaningful Work. The Three Pillars That Drive Engagement and Performance

Employee engagement scores haven't improved in 13 years. Organizations have invested millions in various efforts yet nothing has changed. Why? Because we've been measuring the wrong thing.

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Wes Adams and Tamara Miles, co-authors of Meaningful Work, found that the secret is meaning. And meaning is something that can be created in any position within an organization.

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Their research identifies three intentional pillars for creating meaningful work:

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1. Community – This is about belonging. It means people feel authentically accepted, that they can bring their full selves to work, and that they genuinely care about and are cared for by the people around them. It's not forced team-building exercises. It's psychological safety combined with genuine connection.

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2. Contribution – It's not enough for people to know what they do. They need to understand why it matters, who it impacts, and what benefits result from their work. This moves far beyond profitability metrics and towards whose lives they're improving and how.

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3. Challenge – Many organizations think positive workplaces mean removing stress and obstacles. But people want to be challenged. They want to figure out what they're made of and to pursue growth.Things they thought might not be possible. The secret is creating environments where challenge is paired with support.

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"The vast majority of human beings really want to figure out what we're made of. What are the upper limits of our potential? How can we create an environment where we can safely pursue that?"

Organizations that intentionally build these three pillars see measurable improvements in retention, productivity, innovation, and employee wellbeing.

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Leaders are responsible for almost half of each individual's experience of meaning at work. You don't need to restructure the entire organization. You can start with your team, your direct relationships, and small practices.

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Navigating AI Thoughtfully: The CRIT Framework

AI is reshaping work faster than most organizations can adapt to. Geoff Woods, author of The AI Driven Leader, highlights the important risk that many people are using AI as a replacement for thinking, not as a partner to thinking. They dump a question into an AI tool, get an answer, and move on. But that's delegating your thinking to a machine.

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Woods offers the CRIT framework, a structured approach to engaging with AI as a thought partner:

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C – Context. You explain the full context to AI. What's the situation? What constraints exist? What have you already tried?

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R – Role. You assign a role to AI. "I want you to act as a strategic advisor. I want you to play devil's advocate. I want you to think like a skeptical investor."

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I – Interview. Here's where it gets interesting. Rather than you asking AI to solve the problem, AI asks you questions. One at a time. It fills in gaps you didn't know existed. It clarifies your thinking.

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T – Task. Finally, you define what you're looking for as output. What are you actually going to do with this? What decision are you making?

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The CRIT framework keeps you in the driver's seat. You remain the thought leader. AI becomes the sophisticated thinking partner it's designed to be. This distinction matters because AI is genuinely useful.

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The Power of Problem Finding Over Problem Solving

One more insight that emerged across multiple conversations was that the best teams get deliberate about problem finding.

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Zorana Pringle, author of The Creativity Choice, argues that high-performing teams pause before jumping to action. They spend time defining the actual problem, not just the obvious or easy one. What's really going on? What's the underlying issue? What are we trying to accomplish?

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This deliberate pause separates teams that deliver mediocre solutions quickly from teams that deliver excellent solutions. It also unlocks creativity. When you've accurately identified the real problem, creative solutions emerge naturally.

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Your Turn. Start Small, Build Momentum

These aren't techniques you need to master all at once. Pick one. Maybe it's committing to genuine curiosity in your next difficult conversation. Maybe it's auditing your team for cognitive diversity.

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Small moves compound. Curiosity leads to understanding. Understanding builds trust. Trust creates space for diverse perspectives. Diverse perspectives generate better decisions. Better decisions drive better results.

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The leaders winning in 2026 won't be the ones with the slickest strategy decks or the most buzzword-laden presentations. They'll be the ones who got genuinely curious about their people, who built teams with real diversity of thought, and who created environments where work actually means something.

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Ready to make 2026 your best year yet?

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• To get practical tools and actionable tips that will jumpstart your journey, download the Curiosity, Team Diversity, and Meaningful Work Kick Starter Booklet here.
  
  
• Join the newsletter to be notified when a new episode is ready for you to listen and get every Kick Starter Booklet for all future episodes.
  
  
• And if you’re looking to elevate your entire C-Suite leadership team, learn how Craig Dowden can help your leaders perform at their highest-level visit https://www.craigdowden.com/executive-mastermind
  
  
• For a deeper dive, listen to the full-length episode of the Do Good to Lead Well podcast featuring Wes Adams & Tamara Myles:
  
  • Spotify
  • Apple Podcasts

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Did you like this article on the state of Ai therapy in organizations? Does it help you become a better leader? Then check out these articles to help hone those skills even further:

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• Transform Your 2026 (Part 1): 2025's Top Leadership Minds: The Extraordinary Guests and Insights That Will Transform Your 2026 (Part 1)
• Beat Burnout and Build Real Connection: How to Reclaim the Holiday Magic: 5 Powerful Strategies to Beat Burnout and Build Real Connection with Craig Dowden
• Hospitality Leadership: How Hospitality Leadership Transforms Teams and Drives Business Results with Taylor Scott
• Transform Average Teams into Extraordinary Ones: Teamship Over Leadership: The 10 Shifts That Transform Average Teams into Extraordinary Ones with Keith Ferrazzi
• Understanding Yourself: Self-Awareness in Leadership: Why Understanding Yourself Is the Non-Negotiable Foundation of Sustainable Success with Margaret Andrews
• Empathy Fatigue: How to Protect Against Empathy Fatigue: Essential Strategies for Leaders Facing Emotional Burnout with Craig Dowden
• Build Learning Organizations with Andrew Lo: How to Build Learning Organizations That Drive Innovation: Andrew Lo's Leadership Framework for Empowerment and Accountability
• Employee Wellbeing Drives Better Business Results with Mark C. Crowley: Why Employee Wellbeing Drives Better Business Results Than Engagement Ever Could with Mark Crowley
• ‍Feedback That Drives Growth with Dr. Michael Nevarez: How to Give Feedback That Drives Growth Without Triggering Defensiveness: A Psychiatrist's Evidence-Based Approach with Dr. Michael Nevarez
• Learning to Love Midlife with Chip Conley: Learning to Love Midlife: Why Life Gets Better with Age and How to Navigate Transformation
• ‍Unlock Your Creative Potential with Zorana Pringle: How to Unlock Your Creative Potential: Science-Based Strategies to Make Better Decisions and Turn Ideas into Action with Zorana Pringle