#639 Curiosity in Leadership: Build Trust, Reduce Conflict, Lead Better with Yosi Kossowsky

What if the secret to better leadership wasn’t about having all the answers—but asking better questions?

In this episode of Talking with the Experts, host Rose Davidson welcomes Yosi Kossowsky, a seasoned executive coach with over 18 years of experience, to explore the power of curiosity in leadership. Yosi shares how curiosity can transform the way leaders connect, communicate, and create impact.

Many leaders believe their effectiveness comes from knowledge and quick decision-making. But Yosi reveals that true leadership presence emerges when leaders slow down, become curious, and engage in mindful inquiry. Instead of reacting or relying solely on expertise, curiosity creates space for deeper trust, greater understanding, and stronger collaboration.

Drawing on his experience as a former Chief Technology Officer and Senior Director of Talent Management, Yosi explains how curiosity reduces conflict, opens the door to more inclusive decision-making, and fosters a culture where people feel genuinely heard and valued. He combines insights from neuroscience, organizational development, and personal coaching to provide actionable techniques leaders can use immediately.

Whether you’re leading a small team or an entire organization, this episode will help you reframe leadership as a practice of curiosity—not control.

🎯 Key Takeaways:

• How to use curiosity to reduce reactivity and build deeper trust.
• Techniques to turn conflict into opportunity through mindful inquiry.
• A framework for integrating curiosity into everyday leadership conversations.

✨ Leadership doesn’t require having all the answers. It requires the courage to ask the right questions—and the curiosity to listen fully to the answers. 

🔗 CONNECT WITH YOSI

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ykossowsky/

Website: http://yosikossowsky.com

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Transcript

Rose | 00:00
Business insights on Talking with the Experts. Hosted by Rose Davidson. How can curiosity be one of the most powerful tools for a leader? Yosi Kossowsky is going to talk to us about how curiosity can be one of the most powerful tools the letter can use to connect more deeply with others, build trust and lead more effectively. Now you'll see is a seasoned executive coach with over 18 years of experience and a background as a Chief Technical Officer and Senior Director of Talent Management. Yosi specialises in leadership development, personal growth and effective communication, leveraging neuroscience and organisational development principles. He's helped leaders across the globe navigate complex challenges, build high performing teams and teams. Drive meaningful change and get ready to learn actionable strategies to enhance your leadership skills and foster a culture of trust and collaboration Yosi it is such a pleasure to meet you thank you so much for joining me on Talking with the Experts. 

 Yosi | 01:12
You're so welcome, Rose, and I'm really glad to be here. And thank you for the invite. 

 Rose | 01:17
It is my great, very great pleasure. I'm really looking forward to discussing about this curiosity in leadership and, you know, how leaders can shift from needing to have all the answers to asking better questions. And I think that is sometimes the way to go. But tell me what led you down this path? 

 Yosi | 01:37
So, What led me down this path initially Before I... Understood the neuroscience of our, of how the brain processes communication was the how often people would just make assumptions and how often those seem to be at least partially incorrect. 
 And then when they are, what that tends to lead to in terms of conflict, confusion. Friction between people. And so that was the initial recognition of the challenge. And When I... Started studying to really before becoming a coach, I started studying just for myself to understand myself better. And one of the areas that I ended up studying was neuroscience therapy. And that helped me understand that. The way that we process communication as humans is very subjective. Meaning, right now I'm talking with you and your listeners. I know, or I believe I know what I'm saying, What I for sure know is that I don't know how you are hearing and interpreting it. 
 So if I extrapolate that to my day-to-day life, I'm having a work conversation. I'm asking somebody to do some work. I'm giving a deliverable. I'm checking in. I'm doing feedback, something, anything of that nature, communication, you know, So, yeah. If I... Apply this subjective understanding principle, everything I say I know is being interpreted differently. I just don't know how it's being interpreted by you or any of the listeners or whoever I'm talking to. And vice versa, when I'm being spoken to, I'm interpreting it in my own way. And Ultimately, it's just ineffective. 
 So that then leads to, well, what do we do about that? How do we solve for that so that we can have a more productive, effective conversation? And the technique that I have decided upon in using for my coaching is curiosity. 
 So I hope that helps answer or start the answer of the question. 

 Rose | 03:55
Rose. Absolutely, it does. Yes, and you're quite right. Conversation communication is subjective and it is, you know, can be difficult, especially written communication is I find can be the most trying of all the communication styles is because what the writer is intending or the, you know, the tone or the language or whatever can often be misconstrued or misunderstood by the receiver. 
 So what the sender sends is something that they think is, you know, upbeat and humorous and, you know, really laid back, the person who's receiving it might take offense to it and there was no offense intended. And this causes a lot of, hardships and heartaches and, you know, misunderstandings and, you know, and leads to bad communication. 
 So we have to be so mindful that we're using words that firstly, that the receiver can understand. So, you know, sometimes not using big words or using jargon or any of those sorts of things. And making sure that maybe if we're uncertain about how we've received a communication from somebody, repeating it back in how we understand that communication was intended. Right. 

 Yosi | 05:17
- 100%. And Rose, as you mentioned, easier done when we're talking to each other, much more challenging in the written form because, right, how do you... Do this repeating even in a written form that doesn't, become a really long thread of something that doesn't actually achieve the point of the communication. And If you add in the context of cultural influences Australia, British, American, Everybody has different writing styles. Humor styles. Etc. And that is very hard to convey effectively in words alone. 

 Rose | 06:08
Absolutely. Yeah. 
 I mean, even when you're using, artificial intelligence like chat gbt if you're not mindful of the language you're instructing it to you know the feedback that you want from the ai you sometimes get something totally different than what you wanted. So you've got to be mindful of the language you're using these days, I think more so than ever, because of the fact that, you know, people are much more discerning, I think, about, you know, how they want to receive their communication. 

 Yosi | 06:40
Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. 

 Rose | 06:44
Okay, so what are some techniques to turn conflict into opportunity? You know, I don't know if it's about asking the right questions or different types of questions, but what are other techniques we can use? 

 Yosi | 06:56
So for me, there's a pre-step process. For each person. Before we even start opening our mouths, which is A mindset of what if I really don't, No. What if I don't know what they mean? What if I don't understand them? What if I am missing context? What if I don't know? And so that mindset, that is to me the most foundational part of this technique, which is rather than. Operating on anything else of, well, I think I know, My experience tells me anything that gives me grit or Gris, I think is for the middle of thinking that I might know. Get rid of that. What if I don't know? Once we can accept that, The second is, what is my intent? Do I, is my intent to... Want to believe this person, to want to trust this person, or is my intent influenced because of other things, other interactions that I'm already coming in to this conversation with some doubt or other things? Being really aware of what is my intent or thought process vis-a-vis this person or this group, etc. 
 And then the third is, Do I... It comes into the, what if I don't know? And especially in a workplace situation, format There is... Context for something. And often the context upon which I am approaching something and the other person is - Ashley never really explicitly said. And so, What is my context would be the third question I ask myself before I speak. What is my context for this conversation? 
 So what if I don't know? What is my intent and what is the context I'm bringing to this conversation? 
 And then when I approach a conversation, And inherently, if I want to start to address those three questions, I need to ask questions of the other person. That's what I would call curiosity in an approach, which is starting off with the mindset of those three questions, which is curiosity mindset, and then the curiosity questions and my mindset. Guideline to people is, try to reformat or recraft your words to start with what how, tell me more, help me understand, can you give me an idea? Ultimately avoiding starting with the word why. The word why can fit in later on in the sentence structure. And again, based on cultural nuances, natural, you know, English first, mother tongue, the word why can actually be triggering for people or feel judgmental. And so what, how, tell me more, help me understand, can you give me an idea? What does that mean? Can you give me some context? Things of those natures allow you to explore, and get the answers to the what if the, measure the intent, and start to then say, okay, what is their context for this level of the conversation? And joining to level set that as well. 

 Rose | 10:38
And you're right about the word why. Why can sort of be like an accusation, can't it? 
 So why did you do that? It's like you're accusing someone of doing something and you're You may not even know that they've done anything. 
 So, you know, you really need to think about, you know, reframing how you use tools. I mean, you want to ask why they've done something, but maybe, you know, help me understand what's happened or something like that, rather than use that word why, because it can be a bit confronting. 

 Yosi | 11:13
Yeah, it really can. And it's amazing. I imagine that you probably enjoy observing people and as you all have all of these conversations meet so many different people and, It is amazing as I watch conversations happen, how quickly I see them start to go off the rails because of simple things like that. 

 Rose | 11:36
Yeah, and we often forget too that, you know, cultural background really does, as you quite rightly pointed out before, it does have a lot to do with how we communicate with each other. And, you know, when I used to work in the public service here in Australia for a law enforcement agency, you had to use a certain way to question people to get the best answers out of them. But we had to be mindful of cultural differences that when we were questioning anybody at an airport or a, shipping container inspection or whatever, because, you know, they may take a front to how they were asked the question. For me, it would have been quite natural. But for them, it could be quite an insult. 

 Yosi | 12:27
Right. Yeah, absolutely. 

 Rose | 12:30
Yeah. So what framework can we use to integrate curiosity into everyday leadership conversations, Yosi? 

 Yosi | 12:40
So, I actually never created a specific framework and I'm really into frameworks. So it's funny now that you've mentioned that and now it like a light bulb for me to say, maybe I need to put this actually into a real framework. 
 So it really goes into what we've already talked about, which is the three pre- internal questions, And to me, the first one is the most important. And when I'm coaching, I try to make it more fun. What if I don't know? What if I don't know shit type of thing? And If we can start off building the habit of that and, Building habits is something that I think There's a lot been written about by many different people and points of view about how one does that. For me, I often put post-it notes around my monitor for things that I'm trying to remind myself and grow into the habit of using. And... And so that's the first. If I can build the second two, my intent and my context for what I'm about to say, then amazing. And the second though, hard core piece of the framework is what if I have to change everything I want to say to begin with. What, how, tell me more, help me understand. Can you give me an idea? And what I find is that I will role play people. With leaders. On this, like say, okay, let's plan a conversation that you're about to have. And roleplay. And it's not so simple. To shift what we want to say into what, how, tell me more, help me understand. Can you give me an idea? And so it's fun to do that and to challenge ourselves. And to me, that's the framework. What's even... More. Powerful per se is to share what I'm doing with others. 
 So this doesn't have to be, my secret practice technique. It's something that I can share with others that I'm practicing. 
 And then as a mindset for all of this is to consider it an experiment. This is not about getting it right or wrong. This is about trying something and seeing what results you get that are different. Does it provide more clarity? 
 So, therefore, does it lower friction, I think I said clarity already. That's ultimately the goal and I believe that. When used as a team, it can build or deepen trust. And respect. 

 Rose | 15:31
Yeah, trust and respect within a team is really vital and, you know, And again, using language that builds that trust within an organisation or a team or with a co-worker or whatever, you know, you just need to be so mindful of the words that you use that aren't offensive to somebody else. 

 Yosi | 15:56
Yeah, absolutely. So there's one more piece, Rose, which I find that people... Might underestimate, and that is the role of ambiguity in our language. And what I mean by ambiguity is words that we commonly used that in our mind, have a definition or have the potential of a definition, The word itself definitely implies a definition. And... We never speak it out or confirm or validate that. Examples are I need that as soon as possible. Can you make this more clear? Can you... Make it sound more professional. I need it by the end of the week. I need you to be on time. I need you to be more proactive, and so on. These words... All imply a metric. In another sense or timing or some, something that's quite specific and it's, I will. Very often watch conversations where It is spoken in these ambiguous terms. The speaker says them, the listener says, okay, sure. No one validates or confirms what, is meant by these ambiguous terms or words. 
 And then- Lo and behold. There's disappointment down the line because we did interpret them differently. And... And again, if we are aware of it, then it's something that we can address. 

 Rose | 17:41
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and, you know, can you know, have this in by Friday, but what is this? What is this thing that you're talking about? You need to be clear, you need to explain to a person. 
 Sometimes it's like they're a five year old. It's like when you're writing something, it's got to be in the style of, you know, someone who's a child. I don't mean to, you know, make people sound stupid or anything, because that's not what I meant. What I'm meaning, but you need to make it so that everyone can understand and you need to explain yourself. 
 So what is this thing that you want them to, you know, have in by Friday? It's... It's not clear. And the person might do something totally different than what you wanted them to do. 
 So, yeah, you've got to be really clear in your communication. I think it's really important. It doesn't matter if it's at work or at home or with your friends or anywhere, you need to be really clear. I think it's something that we've lost along the way, I think, with our hurried lifestyles and everything. We just expect people to know what we're talking about and to be mind readers. 
 And then we're not, you know, we still haven't got to that far yet. 

 Yosi | 18:52
No, yeah, not at all. We are not there at all. It's funny that you say that because it's another question I ask people. Are you a mind reader? Just to put it into context of how often we Again, me. Inexplicitly Talk or act as if we think other people are mind readers. 

 Rose | 19:17
Yeah, we just expect people to know stuff. And, you know, we're having a conversation with somebody and we're asking them to do something, but we just expect them to know what the answer is. Nine times out of 10, they have no idea what you're talking about. And you need to really explain yourself. And as I said, you know, you need to, I guess, dumb down your conversation with people, even though people aren't silly. But, you know, you've got to put it in a way that others can understand. We saved it. Information that you're trying to convey. 

 Yosi | 19:48
Correct. Yeah, I'm with you 100%. 

 Rose | 19:51
Wonderful. If you want to find out more about Yosi, you can find him on LinkedIn and on his website at Yosikosowski.com. And Yosi, do you have any words of wisdom you'd like to impart to our audience today? 

 Yosi | 20:07
What I'd like to say to everybody is... Have an experimental mindset. Try the things that you've heard today. See what happens. See how it works for you. See if it changes the style, the nature of your conversations, if it changes the flavor and the feeling of what happens next. And if it does, please share it in comments on the different sites that Rose has. To help others learn from your experiences as well. 

 Rose | 20:38
Great words of wisdom. I thank you for putting that in there for me about sharing. I love that. Yes, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing with us about communication styles and how we can be more curious in our conversations. 

 Yosi | 20:54
You're welcome. Thank you. 

 Rose | 20:56
Bye, for now. 

 Outro | 20:58
You've been listening to Talking With The Experts, hosted by Rose Davidson. Make sure you have a look at our back catalogue over at talkingwiththeexperts.com. And be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you don't miss out on any episode. We look forward to your company next time.