A publication of the Association of California School Administrators

Curiosity as a superpower

Choosing connection over certainty in educational leadership

By Lauren Berlin | September | October 2025

“Would you send your child to this classroom?” The parent’s voice crackled with anger through my phone speaker, demanding an immediate response.

It’s a familiar moment for every school leader — that split second when you feel the weight of all possible responses. The instinct to defend your teachers, your school, and your decisions rises quickly. The pressure to respond immediately feels overwhelming. After all, there are 20 other urgent matters waiting for your attention, three meetings scheduled back-to-back, and a stack of emails demanding responses.

But I’ve learned that in these heated moments, curiosity becomes our superpower.

Instead of taking the bait, I took a breath and responded, “What I think I’m hearing is that you don’t feel safe sending your son to this classroom. Am I getting that right? Or is it something else?”

The shift was subtle but immediate. Within minutes, the parent moved from shouting general complaints and accusations to articulating specific concerns. Together, we identified priorities that needed addressing in order for her child to feel safe at school. What started as a confrontation transformed into a collaboration.

Here’s what most leadership articles won’t tell you: As school administrators, we’re often in lose-lose situations. We can’t solve every problem or satisfy every party. But we can do something more powerful — we can create space for people to feel heard, to feel valued. And it starts with getting curious.

The reality of school leadership? It’s a constant flood of urgent demands. Email notifications ping endlessly. The walkie-talkie crackles with campus updates. A line of staff members forms outside your door. Three separate parents need “just five minutes” of your time. And that’s all before the first bell rings.

In this environment of overwhelming volume and velocity, our natural instinct is to react quickly — to clear issues off our plates as fast as possible. After all, efficiency is valued. Action is expected. Solutions should be immediate … right? Wrong.

Here’s what I’ve discovered after years of navigating these high-pressure moments: The initial problem presented is almost never the real issue. When a parent storms in about a classroom assignment, they’re often carrying deeper fears about their child’s future. When a teacher seems resistant to a new initiative, there might be underlying concerns about support and resources. When a student acts out in class, the surface behavior rarely tells the whole story.

By rushing to solve the presenting problem, we often miss the actual issue entirely. Worse, our quick fixes can create new problems, leading to repeated conversations, escalating tensions, and more time spent in the long run.

But here’s the paradox: Taking time to get curious — even when it feels like we don’t have a second to spare — actually saves time. It prevents the exhausting cycle of addressing symptoms while core issues continue to simmer beneath the surface. So how do we actually practice curiosity when everything feels like it’s on fire?

Here’s your practical playbook for transforming heated moments into productive dialogue.

Start with safety When emotions are high, creating safety becomes both a physical and emotional practice. It starts with us as leaders. Take a deliberate breath. Slow your movements. If possible, sit down — this simple act signals that you’re fully present and creates space for real dialogue.

This intentional downshift isn’t just about you — it actually helps regulate the other person. Through mirror neurons, our calm presence can help de-escalate their heightened state. When we slow down, they often slow down with us. When we sit, they often join us. When we breathe more deeply, their breathing often naturally follows.

Only then, when the physical environment feels safer, do we layer in those verbal invitations for understanding: “Help me understand …” or “What I think I’m hearing is …” These aren’t just empty techniques — they’re extensions of the safety we’ve already begun creating through our presence.

Ask power questions Instead of jumping to solutions, try these conversation-opening questions:

“What’s most important to you in this situation?”
“How is this affecting your child/student/classroom?”
“What would success look like from your perspective?”
“What concerns you most about this?”

Remember: The goal isn’t to solve everything immediately. It’s to understand what’s really at stake.

Reframe success

Success in these conversations isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about:

Creating space for authentic dialogue.
Identifying the real issues beneath surface complaints.
Building collaborative approaches to complex challenges.
Understanding what people actually need, not just what they’re asking for.

The magic of the pause When someone brings you a heated issue, take a breath before responding. This tiny moment allows you to:

Notice your own reactive impulses.
Choose curiosity over defensiveness.
Focus on understanding rather than solving.
Model the thoughtful leadership your community needs.

Back to that angry parent on the phone — had I responded defensively or rushed to offer solutions, we’d likely have ended up in an endless cycle of escalating complaints. Instead, curiosity opened a different door — not to perfect resolution, but to something valuable: the ability to keep talking. To keep working together. Whether this relationship becomes truly sustainable over time, I don’t know. But for now, we have a path forward. We have dialogue instead of deadlock.

Let’s be honest — in school leadership, we can’t solve every problem. We can’t make everyone happy. Some issues don’t have clear solutions, and some perspectives will remain fundamentally different. And that’s OK.

What we can do, through curiosity, is build and maintain relationships that weather these challenges. When we lead with genuine questions instead of defensive answers, we create something more valuable than quick fixes — we create bridges of understanding that hold steady even when we disagree.

I’ve witnessed this truth repeatedly. The measure of successful leadership isn’t in resolving every issue perfectly. It’s in prioritizing connection over being “right.” It’s in creating spaces where people feel heard, even when their demands can’t be fully met. It’s in keeping the door open for relationship-building, even through our most challenging conversations. Sometimes these efforts lead to stronger, lasting connections. Sometimes they simply maintain the possibility of future dialogue. We can’t control or predict these outcomes. What we can control is our intent: choosing curiosity over defensiveness, understanding over winning, and connection over being right.

So the next time you face a heated situation, remember: Your superpower isn’t having all the answers or fixing every problem. It’s having the courage to stay curious and choose connection, even when being “right” feels safer. It’s creating space for dialogue, even when you don’t know where it might lead. It’s choosing to keep the door open, even when closing it would be easier.

Because in the end, strong school communities aren’t built on perfect resolutions or winning arguments. They’re built on leaders who dare to prioritize connection over certainty; leaders who understand that while we can’t guarantee outcomes, we can always choose how we show up: with curiosity, with openness, and with a willingness to keep the conversation going.

Lauren Berlin is SELPA coordinator for San Mateo County Office of Education and an executive coach with experience in conflict resolution, negotiation, and mediation.