Scott Shigeoka has spent the last year driving a 25-foot purple van across the country with the word curiosity emblazoned on the side. He's a researcher, author, and the Head of Curiosity Cultivation at the Eames Institute. And yes, we are also jealous of that job title. 

But the van isn't a stunt. It's research. Scott is documenting ordinary people doing extraordinary things to make their communities better, from librarians protecting free access to ideas to neighbors helping each other rebuild after a hurricane. He’s following his curiosity to find and share stories that have the potential to bring us together. 

Scott joined Mina Seetharaman on the Creative Confidence Podcast to talk about the science of curious leadership, what separates genuine curiosity from the performative kind, and what it actually looks like to lead with questions when you're the one with the most power in the room.

If you enjoy this episode, listen to our first interview with Scott: Why Curiosity is a Business Imperative.

This episode is part of an ongoing series on navigating uncertainty. We’re looking at the topic from multiple angles with several guests this year. Also in this series: How to Not Know with Simone Stolzoff and The Decisiveness Crisis in Senior Leadership Teams with Sam Conniff.

Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Article Summary

• How curiosity can restore you, not drain you

• The Curious 100: Leaders who are driving social change through curiosity

• Curiosity and power dynamics

• The four curious leader archetypes

• Curiosity vs. conviction: they're not in conflict

• Predatory curiosity and why it backfires

• Put it into practice

 

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How curiosity can restore you, not drain you

Curiosity releases dopamine. It's one of the few cognitively demanding activities that can generate energy rather than deplete it. But you have to build the muscle to access that reward.

Scott experienced this firsthand before the Curiosity Mobile trip, when he was running low on hope. Getting close to people doing remarkable things in their communities didn't just inform him. It refilled him. The same logic applies inside organizations: when a team is stuck in apathy, more persuasion rarely helps. Curiosity is often what actually closes the gap. Go to the edges and find the stories that prove what's possible. 

The Curious 100: Leaders who are driving social change through curiosity

As Head of Curiosity Cultivation at the Eames Institute, Scott curates the Curious 100, an annual list of people who exemplify curiosity as an active practice. The 2026 list includes IDEO founder David Kelley, IDEO CEO Mike Peng, and more inspiring designers, creatives, and advocates. The list spans fields and disciplines deliberately: the goal is to show how many forms curious leadership takes, and to make the case that there isn't one way to do it. 

The Curious 100 builds deliberately on the legacy of Ray and Charles Eames, whose insatiable curiosity and interdisciplinary approach to design continue to inspire how we think about creative problem-solving. See the full list at thecurious100.org.

Curiosity and power dynamics

The more power you hold in a dynamic—as a manager, an executive, a majority-group member—the more important it is for you to be the curious one. Not the one explaining or making the case, but the one asking questions and listening. 

This idea comes from researcher Emile Bruneau’s work on intergroup dialogue, and the organizational implications are direct. Most leaders talk when they should be listening. Curious leadership inverts that, and the research shows both sides walk away better for it.

How curiosity changes your reaction in the moment

When you're in a conflict or a high-stakes conversation and your instinct is to defend or persuade, getting curious does something measurable: it slows your breathing, reduces cortisol, and brings your heart rate down. That's not just good for you. When a leader shifts into curiosity mode, it gives the whole room permission to slow down and think more creatively. 

The four curious leader archetypes

Scott is developing a framework of curious leadership archetypes as a way of seeing more entry points into curious practice. 

• The Explorer goes out looking. Listening tours, field research, conversations with people unlike them. They sense what's actually happening before deciding what to do about it.

• The Provocateur asks the uncomfortable question. They say the quiet part out loud and treat tension as useful information rather than something to smooth over.

• The Reflector integrates what they've learned. They love a debrief. They're constantly asking what the last project revealed and how it changes the next one.

• The Imaginator creates something that didn't exist before. They see possibilities where others see limitations, and they're drawn to mentoring because they can see what people are capable of before those people can.

Most leaders have a dominant type. But recognizing the full range means you can stretch into other ways of practicing curiosity when the moment calls for it. 

Scott has since built this framework out into a full Curiosity Toolkit. It's free, and it walks through the research case for curiosity at work, then breaks into five areas where curiosity shows up on a team—creativity, bridging difference, wellbeing, belonging, and working with new technology like AI. Each has a real case study (Pixar, Walmart, a public library system) plus practices and reflection questions you can use in meetings. 

There's also a short quiz to find your own curious leadership archetype.

Curiosity vs. conviction: they're not in conflict

Listening to someone else's perspective doesn't mean you have to adopt it. What it does is give you more information, which often makes your original position stronger. While values stay constant, ideas, strategies, and business directions should stay open to revision as new information comes in. A leader who conflates the two ends up defending positions they should be updating, and compromising on things they should be protecting.

Predatory curiosity and why it backfires

Not all curiosity is generous. Predatory curiosity looks like openness but has an agenda underneath. This is when questions are used to gather ammunition rather than understanding. Real curiosity doesn't know where a conversation is going to land. And the proof is in what happens afterward: if a leader asks questions and nothing ever changes as a result, people will stop believing the questions are well intentioned.

Put it into practice

Start with a question of the day. Open your next team meeting with one real question that invites people to share a genuine perspective. It primes the room for the kind of conversation where people actually feel heard.

Do a power analysis before you listen. Who holds the most power in this conversation? If it's you, your job is to be curious, not to explain or reassure. Practice asking questions and staying open.

Try "tell me more." Three words that keep a conversation from closing prematurely, and a practice Scott admits he has to work at himself, especially with the people he's closest to.

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Explore More

Listen to more episodes

Scott was previously on the Creative Confidence Podcast to discuss his book Seek and why curiosity is a business imperative. Listen to that conversation here. Also in this series on navigating uncertainty: How to Not Know with Simone Stolzoff and The Decisiveness Crisis in Senior Leadership Teams with Sam Conniff.

Read the book

Seek: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World by Scott Shigeoka.

See the Curious 100

Thecurious100.org — the full 2026 list of leaders exemplifying curiosity in practice.

Use the Curiosity Toolkit

Scott's free Curiosity Toolkit includes practices, case studies, and reflection questions for building curiosity into your team's culture.

Take the Curious Leader Archetype Quiz

Find out what kind of curious leader you are with this short quiz.

Take a course

IDEO U's Foundations in Creative Leadership Certificate is built for leaders who want to develop the mindsets and practices that make creative, human-centered leadership possible.

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About the Speaker

Scott Shigeoka
Author, Speaker & Head of Curiosity Cultivation, Eames Institute
LinkedIn

Scott Shigeoka is a curiosity expert, storyteller, and speaker whose work focuses on how curiosity can strengthen relationships, well-being, and work culture. He is the award-winning author of Seek: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World, an Amazon Best Book of the Year, Porchlight Best Business Book, and a Next Big Idea Club Must-Read selected by Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Daniel Pink, and Adam Grant. 

A Fellow at UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, Scott has worked with organizations including Google, Microsoft, Pixar, Stanford, and Harvard. Beyond speaking and writing, he co-curates the Curious 100 as Head of Curiosity Cultivation at the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity, and has led creative projects on curiosity and connection with David Byrne's "We Are Not Divided." His winding career has included work as a Washington Post music writer, a Fulbright scholar in Iceland, and roles in Hollywood and community initiatives at IDEO.

 

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