---
title: "Curiosity Wins: Leadership Insights With Michelle Dauphinais"
description: Michelle Dauphinais on why curious leaders listen better, ask better questions, and keep certainty from arriving too early. An Activating Greatness recap.
image: https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/ep-14-Michelle-1.png
---

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Activating Greatness Podcast Episodes March 22, 2026 | Episode 15

# Curiosity Wins: Why Great Leaders Ask Better Questions — with Michelle Dauphinais

## Curiosity Wins: Michelle Dauphinais on Asking Questions Before Offering Answers

**In this post:** *John Hancock distribution leader Michelle Dauphinais explains how curiosity in leadership improves decisions: ask questions before offering answers, challenge ideas instead of people, and meet each team member in their own communication style.*

The email thread was blowing up. Sales, operations, and analytics were frustrated about a slow start to the year, and each group read the same data a little differently. The messages were positional. Everyone was right, and everyone else was the problem.

Michelle Dauphinais, Vice President and Head of Distribution at John Hancock, did not reply with an answer. She replied with a short set of questions.

"What decisions are we actually trying to make? What data do we trust? What data don't we have? And what's the risk if we're wrong?" she recalled on *Activating Greatness*, the leadership podcast from Velocity Advisory Group.

"People stopped defending their lanes, started aligning on a decision, and we landed on a different path than originally proposed, but everyone owned it," she said.

That moment captures the case Dauphinais makes for curiosity in leadership. The leader's most useful move in a tense room is often to stop supplying answers and start asking better questions.

## A Dossier on Every Client

Dauphinais has spent more than 30 years at John Hancock, which she describes as curious by nature. Her own curiosity started early. As a kid she read poetry and biographies for what they revealed about people, and she even considered a career with the FBI.

That instinct followed her into sales. As an individual contributor, she realized "to influence somebody, you had to understand what they were saying when they weren't actually saying it." Before AI or even Google, she built a dossier on each client and how they made decisions.

Today the same habit shapes how she leads. "I ask a lot of questions," she said. "I challenge a lot of assumptions and I try to get underneath the problem to surface a really good conversation so that we can collaborate on an outcome and solution together."

## Tough on the Problem, Light on the People

Curiosity, she said, lets a leader oversee complex teams without overcontrolling them and improve decision quality without slowing momentum. Her shorthand for it is "tough on the problem," meaning bring a lot of curiosity to the problem, "but really light on the people solving the problem."

When she joins a new committee or meets a new client, she announces up front that she will challenge everything. She does it "not with the intent to be difficult because better thinking leads to better outcomes." Naming the tension in advance makes it healthy.

"People need to know the challenge is about the idea, not about them," she said. "I'm not trying to win an argument. I'm trying to improve the quality of decisions."

Sometimes, she said, a leader's job "isn't to resolve the tension, it's to slow the room just enough so that they start asking the right questions."

Dauphinais believes curiosity can be trained, and the practice compounds. "Leaders who stay curious become better listeners," she said, and better listening produces better decisions. "The moment that you stop being curious and listening, you are starting to manage symptoms instead of solving problems." Asked for the one habit she relies on every day, she named asking questions before offering answers. "Curiosity literally prevents certainty from showing up too early in conversations," she said.

FREE ONE-PAGE CHECKLIST

### The Three-Question Reset Checklist

Use it to slow a tense thread or meeting, ask what decision you are making and which data you trust, and keep the challenge on the problem instead of the people.

[Get the free checklist](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/leadership-library/three-question-reset-checklist)

## Meet People Where They Are

In Velocity's Birds framework, Dauphinais is an Owl. Anyone who brings her a problem knows to bring data and possible solutions with it.

She does not, however, require her team to communicate her way. With a Parrot who needs to tell the story first, she makes room for the narrative and pairs that person with a more critical thinker so their strengths complement each other.

"I never take the position that my team has to communicate with me the way I prefer," she said.

Sales makes the point plain. A team may have a rainmaker who builds relationships, a technical solutioner, and a closer who makes the final ask. "Not one individual is a unicorn and can be great at all those things," she said.

Busy leaders may doubt the payoff. Dauphinais, who expects a 10x return on any decision, said the investment returns trust and standards with practice. She pointed to a late-night email from an experienced team member flagging a possible partner escalation, complete with risks, data, and two paths forward. Ten years ago, she said, she would have sent back a ton of edits. This time she wrote one sentence: "I agree with the two options, proceed with the second option and keep me posted if anything changes."

The issue resolved cleanly, and the team moved faster. "Situational leadership is really knowing when your involvement adds value or when it actually slows down your team," she said. José Suquet made a similar point about the slow-building return of culture in [consistency at scale](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-13-consistency-at-scale-jose-suquet).

> "Curiosity literally prevents certainty from showing up too early in conversations."
> 
> *Michelle Dauphinais, Vice President and Head of Distribution, John Hancock*

## Deposits in the Leadership Bank

The youngest of six children, Dauphinais learned early to pick her battles. She treats each interaction as a deposit in the team's autonomy. "If you're not constantly editing or recommending back the solutions, they gain the confidence and trust to keep moving things forward," she said.

## Conflict Exposes Assumptions

Sales organizations generate plenty of disagreement, and Dauphinais sees it as a coaching opportunity "because conflict is usually where assumptions get exposed," including her own. She now leads with influence rather than authority and accepts that someone else's thinking may be stronger.

She also watches the room. When a normally boisterous person goes quiet, crosses their arms, or drifts off camera, she pauses and invites them to share.

Recently, a leader messaged her privately after a meeting with a point that belonged in the group discussion. Instead of carrying it forward herself, she gave that person five minutes at the next meeting to bring the team along. Skipping that step can breed backchanneling. Closing the loop, she said, lets a leader "guide traffic almost like GPS." Jon Stenberg made a related case for owning your blind spots in [appropriately annoyed](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-14-appropriately-annoyed-jon-stenberg).

## Frequently Asked Questions

### Why is curiosity important in leadership?

Michelle Dauphinais, Vice President and Head of Distribution at John Hancock, says curious leaders become better listeners, and better listening produces better decisions. Curiosity lets leaders oversee complex teams without overcontrolling them and improve decision quality without slowing momentum. When leaders stop being curious, she warns, they start managing symptoms instead of solving problems. Her daily habit is asking questions before offering answers, because curiosity prevents certainty from showing up too early.

### Can curiosity be learned?

Yes, according to Michelle Dauphinais. She believes curiosity can be trained, but it takes leadership practice: listening, asking questions, and making expectations clear. Her father, who served in the military, taught her that without listening and asking questions, you never reach the right solution. When a leader expects people to bring data and possible solutions along with a problem, the team itself starts to research, analyze, and think more curiously.

### How do you challenge ideas without making it personal?

Michelle Dauphinais tells new teams and clients up front that she will challenge their thinking, which turns potential friction into healthy tension. She makes clear that the challenge is about the idea, not the person, and that she is not trying to win an argument but to improve the quality of decisions. Her rule is to be tough on the problem and light on the people.

### What questions help resolve team conflict?

When a cross-functional thread turned positional, Michelle Dauphinais replied with questions: "What decisions are we actually trying to make? What data do we trust? What data don't we have? And what's the risk if we're wrong?" The questions moved people from defending their lanes to aligning on one decision. The team chose a different path than first proposed, and everyone owned it.

HOW VELOCITY HELPS

### Velocity DISC Assessments & Training

Dauphinais knows she is an Owl, and she refuses to make her team communicate the Owl way. She makes room for the Parrot's narrative and pairs different styles so they strengthen each other. Velocity's DISC Assessments & Training uses the Birds (Eagle, Parrot, Dove, and Owl) to help leaders and teams understand their own styles and the styles around them. Teams gain a shared language for meeting people where they are, reducing friction, and putting each person's strengths to work on the problem.

See how Velocity works with [financial services firms](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/financial-services/).

[Explore DISC Assessments & Training](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/disc-assessments-training/)

## The Takeaway: The Problem, Not the Personality

The best leadership advice Dauphinais ever received came from a mentor who told her to focus on the problem, not the personality. That mindset, she said, "makes hard conversations survivable." The thing leaders should stop doing, she added, is trying to have all the answers. "The best leaders build environments where the best ideas win."

Her closing thought put people at the center. Leadership, she said, isn't about strategy decks or the org chart. "It's about the people." Curiosity is how a leader acts on that belief: a question asked before an answer, a pause before a verdict, and a room where the best idea wins.

## Listen to the Full Episode

Hear Michelle Dauphinais's full conversation with host Alec McChesney on *Activating Greatness*. [Watch on YouTube](https://youtu.be/g-a2Vdh19Yc), or listen on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/4LcgAut0KyYiGyDhFvMjPD) and [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1868386871). Learn more about Michelle on [John Hancock's leadership page](https://www.johnhancock.com/about-us/leadership/michelle-dauphinais.html).

FREE GUIDE

### The Curiosity-First Model

This short framework helps you ask questions before offering answers, separate the problem from the personality, and build a room where the best ideas win.

[Get the free guide](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/leadership-library/curiosity-first-model)

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## Ready to activate greatness on your team?

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## Related posts

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## [Episode 34: Servant Leadership in Sales: Turn KPIs Into a Classroom — with Tom Wilson](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-34-servant-leadership-in-sales-tom-wilson)

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## [Episode 52: Construction Leadership Development Without a Playbook — with Lisa O'Brien](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-52-construction-leadership-development-lisa-obrien)

[Alec McChesney](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/author/alec-mcchesney) 

 Oct 12, 2026, 8:00:00 AM

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[![EP 2 With Brooke Page-Thompson](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/ep-2-brooke-3-1.png?height=200&name=ep-2-brooke-3-1.png)](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-2-the-culture-shift-brooke-page-thompson)

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---

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