The best leaders (and facilitators) seek to understand before they judge
Every team has moments that invite judgement.
Someone dominates the conversation. Someone else says very little. A colleague becomes defensive when challenged. A deadline is missed. An idea is dismissed too quickly. Energy drops, frustration rises, and before long, people begin forming conclusions about one another.
They’re difficult.
They don’t care enough.
They’re not a team player.
They just don’t get it.
The trouble with these conclusions is not simply that they may be wrong. It is that once we make them, we tend to stop looking.
Judgement closes the case. Curiosity keeps it open.
For leaders and facilitators, that difference matters enormously. The quality of the questions we ask—and the spirit in which we ask them—can determine whether people become guarded or open, whether a difficult conversation becomes destructive or productive, and whether a team remains stuck or begins to move forward.
Judgement creates defensiveness. Curiosity creates possibility.
Human beings are remarkably sensitive to judgement.
We can usually tell when someone has already decided what they think of us. We hear it in the tone of a question, notice it in their body language and feel it in the assumptions beneath their words.
A question such as, “Why are you always so negative?” is not really a question. It is a verdict with a question mark attached.
Compare it with: “I’ve noticed you have some concerns about this. What are you seeing that the rest of us might be missing?”
Both questions address the same behaviour. But they create completely different conditions.
The first encourages the person to defend themselves. The second invites them to contribute.
This does not mean leaders should avoid difficult issues, excuse poor behaviour or lower their standards. Curiosity is not weakness, and it is not endless tolerance. It is a disciplined decision to understand what is happening before deciding what needs to happen next.
The best leaders remain clear about expectations while staying curious about the person, the circumstances and the system surrounding the behaviour.
They ask:
- What might be driving this?
- What pressure is this person experiencing?
- Is there something they understand that I do not?
- Have expectations been made genuinely clear?
- What part of this situation might I—or the wider team—be contributing to?
- What conversation have we not yet had?
These questions do not remove accountability. They make accountability fairer, more accurate and far more likely to lead to change.
Curiosity reveals what behaviour alone cannot
What we see on the surface is rarely the whole story.
Silence in a meeting may look like disengagement, but it might be uncertainty, careful thinking or a lack of psychological safety. Resistance may appear stubborn, but it could reflect previous experience, competing priorities or a legitimate risk that others have overlooked. A controlling leadership style might be driven not by ego, but by fear of failure or a belief that the leader will ultimately carry the blame.
None of this means the behaviour should remain unchallenged.
It means the challenge will be more useful when it is based on understanding rather than assumption.
Curiosity helps us move beyond what is this person doing? to what is happening here?
That shift is particularly important for facilitators. A facilitator’s role is not to decide who is right, rescue the group or impose a preferred answer. It is to notice what is occurring, bring important patterns into the conversation and help the team examine them together.
A curious facilitator does not think, This group is dysfunctional.
They wonder, What has this group learned to avoid?
They do not conclude, These people are not committed.
They ask, What is making commitment difficult here?
They do not label one person as the problem.
They explore, What might this person’s behaviour be telling us about the wider team?
That is where the deeper work begins.
The questions leaders ask shape the culture they create
Culture is built through repeated moments. It is shaped by how leaders respond when someone disagrees, makes a mistake, raises a concern or delivers disappointing news.
If the instinctive response is criticism, blame or premature judgement, people quickly learn to protect themselves. They speak more carefully. They hide mistakes. They avoid risks. They tell leaders what they think leaders want to hear.
If the response is curiosity, people are more likely to tell the truth.
That does not make every conversation comfortable. In fact, genuine curiosity can take a team into territory it has avoided for years. But it gives people a way to enter those conversations without immediately becoming opponents.
A curious leader might say:
- “Help me understand how you arrived at that view.”
- “What feels most important to you here?”
- “What are we not talking about?”
- “What is getting in the way of us doing this well?”
- “What impact do you think this is having on others?”
- “What do you need from me—and what do I need from you?”
- “If we were at our best as a team, how would we handle this?”
These are not clever facilitation techniques. They are invitations to think, reflect and take responsibility.
Over time, they also give others permission to become curious—to question their own assumptions, listen more generously and challenge one another without immediately assigning blame.
Curiosity requires humility
At the heart of curiosity is a simple but demanding belief:
I may not have the whole picture.
For leaders, that can be difficult. Leadership often brings pressure to appear decisive, confident and certain. But certainty used too quickly can prevent a leader from seeing what is actually happening.
The strongest leaders are not those who pretend to know everything. They are those who can hold a clear point of view while remaining open to information that might change it.
They can say:
“This is how I currently see it—but I may be missing something.”
That is not indecision. It is intellectual humility. It shows confidence without arrogance and authority without defensiveness.
It also makes it safer for others to speak honestly.
Stay curious—especially when it is hardest
Curiosity is easy when we are calm, interested and speaking with someone we trust. Its real value appears when we feel frustrated, threatened or convinced that we are right.
Those are the moments when judgement arrives fastest—and when curiosity is most needed.
Before reacting, a leader or facilitator can pause and ask:
What else could be true?
It is a small question, but a powerful one.
It creates space between observation and conclusion. It turns certainty into inquiry. It helps us see the person behind the behaviour and the system behind the problem.
Most importantly, it changes the quality of the conversation that follows.
Great leadership and facilitation are not about ignoring poor behaviour or avoiding hard truths. They are about creating the conditions in which those truths can be explored honestly, responsibly and constructively.
Criticism may tell people what is wrong.
Curiosity helps them understand what is happening—and discover what could be different.
And that is where meaningful change begins.
