Author Mark C. Crowley explains why comfort with the unknown is foundational for employee well-being.
No one likes feeling unsure and out of their depth, especially if you’re responsible for other people. But for author Mark C. Crowley, the unknown is nothing to be afraid of. In fact, it’s an opportunity to become better managers by centering ourselves and looking deeper.
In his new book, The Power of Employee Well-Being, Mark explains how focusing on how your team feels, rather than abstract concepts like employee engagement, is a direct and effective way to improve productivity.
“As a manager, 70% of how employees feel is attributable to you,” he says. That’s a big responsibility. It can even feel overwhelming, because so many aspects of managers’ behavior affect their employees. But getting more comfortable with – and curious about – the unknown is a great place to start.
Uncertain situations are inevitable. By building their skills at navigating them, managers can reduce how stressful they become for teams. Today, we’re sharing some of Mark’s guidance for how managers can move with curiosity and confidence, wherever you are in your career.
Curiosity as a critical leadership skill
“Many early-career managers feel like they need to have all the answers,” says Mark. “But often, people who ask more questions end up getting the most respect.”
When leading others, it’s natural to want to be seen as informed and authoritative. But this facade of all-knowingness can hold us back. Strong leaders don’t know everything, and they certainly don’t pretend to. Instead, they actively seek out and weigh other perspectives as they decide how their team will move forward.
To be a curious leader, operate from an exploratory place. Rather than coming into situations with a clear plan or established position, ask as many open-ended questions as you can. The goal is to challenge your own assumptions and strive toward deeper understanding.
- The people you manage are a wealth of knowledge and experience. How can you tap into that with curiosity?
- How can you look outside your team, using curiosity to drive external research?
A curious management style leads to better decision-making. Because you put effort into gathering knowledge outside your own understanding, you simply have more complete information to draw on. But it also models that behavior for your entire team. By demonstrating to people that it’s okay to not have all the answers, you’re building a culture of curiosity that elevates everyone’s performance.
Curiosity also helps you get to know the people you manage. That’s an important part of supporting well-being and leading compassionately. “You need to know what matters to your people when they’re not working,” says Mark. “Do they have a new baby? Are they in graduate school?”
Getting comfortable with the unknown
There’s little we can be sure of in today’s professional world. From new tech to the global economy, things change fast. Many outcomes, some very dramatic, are being predicted all the time.
For example, you might hear that climate change or AI poses a threat to your industry. But a week later, a different study might claim these risks are overblown. To lead well, managers need to be comfortable with this uncertainty.
“If unpredictable situations send you on a rollercoaster of emotions, you won’t be able to hide that from your people,” says Mark, “That creates stress, holds back their productivity, and will damage your credibility over time.”
The goal is to maintain grace under pressure. That means regulating your own emotions, so you can react to stress and uncertainty in a measured way. “Life unfolds,” says Mark. “Most situations aren’t dramatic; they gradually resolve themselves, one step at a time.”
Channeling curiosity and grace under pressure
“The least effective managers believe they can control every outcome,” explains Mark. This is what curiosity and comfort with the unknown have in common: they require managers to accept that much of what they’ll encounter at work is beyond their direct control.
That’s not giving up, it’s accepting reality. We’re guaranteed to experience these unexpected situations. When we operate from a place of curiosity and don’t balk at uncertainty, we can respond to them much more pragmatically.
This flexibility is crucial for becoming a strong leader, not at odds with it. For example, curious managers still need to be confident and decisive. After exploring an ambiguous situation and asking your team for perspectives, you’ll make the final call about how you’ll move forward.
“When they face the unexpected or unclear, curious and secure managers adapt fluidly, investigate what’s really happening, and re-respond based on that new knowledge,” says Mark. “If you can do that, imagine how much more effectively you’ll be able to get people working under you to change direction, too.”
Strategies to build curiosity and comfort with uncertainty
- Make a habit of admitting when you don’t know something. “We feel vulnerable when we don’t know something,” says Mark. “But if you build a reputation for being curious, people will come to see it as part of your management style.”
- Always assume you have room to improve. “People tend to rate their abilities as above average at nearly everything, from driving to management,” says Mark. “But if you start by assuming that, you’re not going to get any better.”
- Practice asking questions to go deeper. “If someone says, ‘we’re going to do great next week,’ don’t just accept that,” says Mark. “Ask clarifying questions to get closer to what they really meant. Respond with questions like ‘what do you mean by great? Do great on which projects, specifically? Why do you feel you’re set up for success?”
- Think of decisions as “one-way and two-way doors”. Making decisions in the face of uncertainty can be scary. To build comfort, Mark recommends a decision-making model developed by Jeff Bezos at Amazon. “One-way doors” are irreversible decisions, with impacts you can’t walk back from, while “two-way doors” are choices you’ll be able to adjust course on later.
“Most decisions, especially early in your management career, are two-way doors,” he says. “Once you realize that, it removes some stress and pressure to be right all the time.”
Finally, remember that none of this happens overnight. “Be patient with yourself. This is a journey, and you’re going to make mistakes,” says Mark. “If you make people feel safe and secure by leading with curiosity, you’ll build a reservoir of support for when you do stumble.”
Your team doesn’t expect you to be perfect. Being curious in the face of complex situations is hard for everybody, managers or not. But if they see you showing up as a real person who’s learning, even when things don’t go as expected, they’ll feel more comfortable with their own uncertainty, too. That helps set the stage for everyone to do their best work.
The Power of Employee Well-Being is available now. Connect with Mark C. Crowley on LinkedIn, and learn more about his speaking, teaching, and writing on his website.