Good leaders ask questions. But what good, exactly, is coming out of those questions?

You’re getting practical answers to your association’s pressing needs, sure. But asking questions also helps define your organization’s culture. At Fast Company, leadership expert Jeff Wetzler recently wrote about the ways that curiosity can help shape an organization. And one point he makes is that asking questions is an engine for building empathy. 

By asking questions and inviting team members to share stories, he writes, “we create conditions where our real curiosity can emerge. This works because authentic questions lead to richer understanding. As we receive thoughtful answers, we realize how much we’ve been missing.”

Some examples of how this plays out in associations are visible in a recent white paper from Spark Consulting titled “Lean at 10: Culture Eats Methodology for Lunch.” On the surface, the paper is on lean startup methodology, one of the most popular contemporary management philosophies. But it also puts a spotlight on how a culture of constant learning and curiosity reveals the cultural gaps and challenges that require addressing. (Disclosure: I provided copy editing assistance for the report.)

For instance, the report discusses how the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians stood up an innovation team whose first task was to openly discuss how to define innovation. That candor helped participants avoid the jealously guarded fiefdoms that tend to hald progress. As the National Registry’s Tiffany Dyar explained: “We’re partners, operating in service to the SMEs on our operational teams. We had to develop trust with them so they were confident relinquishing initial control to allow the Innovation Team to explore ideas on their behalf that may eventually become their responsibility to scale and maintain.” 

At the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards, deep questioning and curiosity drives new product creation. As Guillermo Ortiz de Zárate, Chief Strategy Officer at NCARB explains, “People are more likely to ask for data to prove or disprove hypotheses. We run more pilots. We try to articulate and question our assumptions. And that’s coming up organically, not as a result of leadership telling staff they have to do it this way.”

But a culture of curiosity doesn’t emerge organically at first. It needs to be advocated for, and demonstrated. Wetzler explicitly challenges leaders to cultivate a group of people with differing viewpoints, to prompt you to ask questions, or even just challenge your own assumptions. As he puts it, “curiosity is a choice.”

So the first question to ask is: What are the barriers to the kind of candor your organization needs? The Spark Consulting white paper notes that organizations often lapse into territoriality. Left unchecked, you wind up with those dreaded silos and not-my-job-ism.

“Success requires every person on staff to develop a deep curiosity about what drives your members and other audiences,” the report says. “Each staff person must become a sponge for gathering information. Perhaps even more importantly, your entire team must transparently and openly share that information.” Curiosity is everybody’s job. But it starts with the people at the top giving permission to ask questions.