For years, soft skills development has been climbing the priority list for forward-thinking organisations, and for good reason. Emotional intelligence, resilience and adaptability have each proven their worth in building stronger leaders and higher-performing teams. Curiosity is the skill that powers all the others, because the leaders (and their teams) who stay curious are the ones who keep learning, keep adapting, and keep asking the questions that move a business forward. In a world of constant change, curiosity is what keeps us ahead of the curve.

Why curiosity is a critical human skill

The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 names curiosity and lifelong learning among the fastest-rising skills between now and 2030, sitting alongside creative thinking and resilience as the human capabilities that complement technology rather than compete with it. Curiosity is a skill that shows up in every industry, and every role. In accounting, it's now described as the essential skill for the AI age, because someone has to challenge what the software so confidently produces. In engineering, technical brilliance opens the door, but curiosity is what carries a career into leadership. Journalism has reframed its most notable trait, asking ‘just one more question,’ as a survival skill for anyone drowning in information.

There are plenty of cautionary tales stemming from a lack of curiosity:

Kodak (imaging/film).

Ironically invented the first digital camera in-house in 1975, then buried it to protect its profitable film business. The failure wasn't ignorance of the technology; it was an unwillingness to interrogate what it meant. A rigid, bureaucratic culture and middle management that couldn't "think digitally" meant the company clung to a physical, chemical product while the world moved to pixels. Filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

Blockbuster (video rental).

Famously passed on the chance to buy Netflix in 2000, and underestimated the threat of mail-order then streaming. Overconfidence in a dominant market position stopped it from asking whether its late-fee, bricks-and-mortar model could survive a different distribution model. It didn't take the newcomer seriously until too late.

Nokia (mobile phones).

Held more than 40% of the global mobile market at its peak. Strong in hardware, weak in software and ecosystem thinking. When Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, Nokia was slow to grasp how central the user experience, apps and touchscreen would become. Complacency, fear of change and slow decision-making meant it pivoted far too late. Sold its mobile division to Microsoft in 2014.

When one skill explains both the accountant querying a dodgy number and the downfall of a multinational, it has earned its spot on the list of critical skills to develop.

Why curiosity matters more in the age of AI

AI is extraordinarily good at handing you an answer in seconds. But is it the right one? And do you remember what it told you 5 minutes ago?

Research pulled together in SurveyMonkey's State of Curiosity 2026 report points to findings from Carnegie Mellon, MIT and others converging on the same conclusion: that frequent AI users show measurable declines in critical thinking as they hand the mental effort to the tool.AI is very good at scratching the surface itch. You have a question, you type it in, an answer appears, and the discomfort of not knowing disappears. But that relief is not the same as understanding. Deep curiosity is the harder habit of pushing past the answer to check whether the machine, for all its confidence, has given you a correct answer. Tellingly, the same research notes that people who wrestle with a problem themselves before reaching for AI outperform those who reach for it first. They think, then consult as opposed to consulting, then stop thinking.

Curiosity is a power skill through which enquiring minds are able to build out strategies, solve problems and innovate.

Curiosity, critical thinking, problem-solving

It helps to see these three as links in a single chain rather than separate boxes to tick.

Curiosity is the catalyst. It's what makes someone ask "why do we do it this way?" or "what happens if we don't?"

Critical thinking comes next: the willingness to sit with that question, test it, pull it apart, and crosscheck the first ‘easy’ answer.

And problem-solving is where curiosity and critical thinking pay you dividends. You can't solve a problem you haven't interrogated and examined, and you won't question it unless something made you curious enough to look twice.

In a world where AI can generate a hundred plausible answers in seconds, the most valuable people in the room are asking if the results are correct.

How leaders can build a culture of curiosity

Curiosity isn't a personality you're born with and stuck with. It's a condition you either create or kill. Toddlers ask endless questions - over 70 a day! But somewhere along the way, most of us trade that in for the comfort of looking certain, and organisations reward the swap handsomely. The manager with all the answers gets promoted - and those that take pause to consider opportunities or interrogate processes are left behind; despite the odds they’re likely to spot a problem first.

So if curiosity is fading on your team, look first at the environment you’ve created and whether you’ve got a psychologically safe team through which questions are raised.

The practical work of leadership here is often harder than the frameworks suggest, but here are 6 ways you can promote and model curiosity in the workplace:

Celebrate the question, not just the answer. When someone challenges an AI output or a long-held assumption, make it visible and valued.
Make it safe to say "I'm not sure," and normalise “I don’t know, let's find out.” People only stay curious where they won't be punished for not already knowing.
Build "why" into your cadences. Retros, planning, reviews. Give the good questions somewhere to live, to be said out loud.
Model it yourself. Ask more than you tell. And ask open questions instead of giving the answers. Curiosity is caught, not taught. Bonus: it also stops you being the bottleneck of all knowledge.
Treat failure as data, not as a verdict. People stop experimenting the moment mistakes get punished. Framing a failed attempt as useful information, and asking what it taught the team, keeps them willing to try the untested thing.
Make challenging AI output an expectation, not a rebellion. Build a norm where "did anyone check this?" is a routine question about an AI-generated answer, the same way you'd fact-check a junior's first draft.

None of this is futuristic; or new. There's nothing shiny about a good question.

The technology will keep improving; but we must remember it’s a tool. We need to be curious enough to ask what did it miss, have we chosen the right application, is this ethical, and did we implement it well?

Ready to build more curious teams?

Curiosity, critical thinking and creative problem-solving are exactly the human skills we help teams develop. Explore our Human Skills Programs for organisations, download the Hodie app to start today, or contact us any time.