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The Leadership Sovereignty Podcast helps high-performing professionals use leadership as a career growth strategy — not just a skill.
Leadership isn’t just a skill — it’s a career strategy for professionals seeking growth, influence, and promotion.
Hosted by Ralph Owens, Chief Information Officer, and Terry Baylor, CEO of a healthcare technology startup, the podcast delivers practical, real-world leadership strategies you can apply immediately. Each episode focuses on increasing visibility, navigating corporate dynamics, preparing for promotion, and leading beyond your title.
Expect short, high-impact conversations designed to help you think, act, and position yourself like a senior leader before you’re given the title.
You’re not just an employee. You’re the CEO of your career.
New episodes are released weekly.
Shachella James (00:00)
for me, I have one of my girlfriends who she says she admires about me, my persistence and my focus. And like the 12 marathons and I've done some other things where I have had to be
just so focused and intentional. But the introspective part of it, Mr. Terry, is where the focus and the discipline came from. Why do I want this? And do I really want it?
Terry Baylor (00:26)
Mmm.
⁓
Ralph Owens (00:51)
edge off. Yeah, thank you for you. So what would you say some of the common mistakes and misconceptions are about curiosity?
Shachella James (01:03)
⁓ I would say a common mistake about curiosity is back to the abuse of it. Is it literally that you should just ask questions just for peppering the room as opposed to being thoughtful about it? Another drawback though is that curiosity, if it's not used appropriately, is seen as ignorance. That is a total misconception of curiosity.
Ralph Owens (01:28)
That's good.
Shachella James (01:33)
I do think that the questions should be sequenced. For example, if you can prepare for a meeting at all, you know there are some things that you may not know. Please use those questions to build on the content at hand ⁓ coming out of left field just to make sure you get heard and get something injected. I think probably ⁓ reinforces that misnomer about curiosity being ignorance. ⁓
Terry Baylor (01:59)
Mm-hmm.
Shachella James (02:04)
questions tailored and timely. I'm coming up with all these things right now. The power, the prompt, and tailored and timely. But tailored and timely questions injected at the right time really do elevate and bring strategy to the conversation. So again, it can work against you though. The people who think they need to be a sound piece
Ralph Owens (02:07)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Baylor (02:10)
Hahaha
Ralph Owens (02:16)
Hmm.
Shachella James (02:33)
that definitely sends the wrong message and you just kind of want to scream enough. Let's move on right and you just want to scream that but curiosity when it's mistreated or when it's not appreciated gets abused.
Ralph Owens (02:37)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-mm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
That's right. That's right.
Shachella James (02:53)
curiosity
when it's not appreciated gets abused and gets mislabeled as ignorance and it's unfortunate that we go through life and we stop asking questions because even kids in Montessori Elementary School, they always have that who picked me. have the question because it's just from a blank slate that blue sky and green field and I love that education encourages curiosity. don't know that corporate America.
Terry Baylor (02:59)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Ralph Owens (03:10)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Shachella James (03:22)
does so much intentionally, but I have seen it rewarded.
Ralph Owens (03:27)
Interesting.
Shachella James (03:28)
Right? I did have some feedback ⁓ a while ago that helped me to appreciate curiosity was that one person asked more questions. I'm like, wow, hmm. That's what stood out to you the most was this, Ralph asked more questions. But I use that to my advantage, right? Say if that's the perception around questions, but good questions.
Ralph Owens (03:41)
Hmm. Hmm.
Hmm.
Terry Baylor (03:49)
Hmm.
Ralph Owens (03:57)
Right,
right.
Shachella James (03:59)
then use it to your advantage. But to me that is the biggest misconception around curiosity is that it's a flag for ignorance and it absolutely is not. And another gem too is if you're really good at asking questions, pepper in questions that you already know the answer to.
Ralph Owens (04:18)
That's that's good, yeah.
Shachella James (04:21)
Pepper in questions that you already know the answer to, or that you think you know the answer to. Invite the other person's response. See how it aligns with yours. And that could be a light bulb moment for you too, because they actually come from a different perspective. So while your answer could indeed be a right answer, it's not the only one right answer.
Terry Baylor (04:35)
Mmm. Mmm.
Ralph Owens (04:36)
Mmm. Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Terry Baylor (04:46)
Mmm, that's good.
Ralph Owens (04:46)
That's good. That's good. That's good. That's good.
Shachella James (04:48)
Yeah,
yeah, curiosity for ignorance, total misnomer unless you're abusing it and pepper in some questions that you already know the answer to and see where it takes you.
Ralph Owens (04:55)
Mm, mm.
⁓
these are some good, good frameworks. this is good. And I just have to touch on something you said too. We cannot underestimate the power of preparation for these meetings and taking the time to prepare your questions instead of just firing off the hip, right? You know, taking some, even if it's just 15 minutes to just have a thoughtful moment to say, these are the things that the topics we're going to talk about. These are the things that I want to ask questions about.
Terry Baylor (05:12)
Yes.
Shachella James (05:17)
Yeah.
Ralph Owens (05:29)
Make sure that they fit the context of the conversation to your point. Don't be that guy. The talking, don't be that guy.
Shachella James (05:35)
Don't be that guy. Don't be that
Terry Baylor (05:37)
Yes.
Shachella James (05:37)
guy. And you know, as someone who is truly prepared, will anticipate questions too. So if you're going in as a presenter, and of course you think you have crossed all your T's and dotted your I's, but your audience may have a gap.
Ralph Owens (05:41)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Hm.
Shachella James (05:59)
How do you anticipate the gap? So even though you've come in prepared to tell your story, you've got your challenge question, you've got your attention getter, you got your whole body worked out, you've got your call to action in place, right? You are ready for this topic. Yet and still, somebody who appreciates curiosity will have a question for you. How do you anticipate those questions and then in the spirit of preparation, come prepared?
Ralph Owens (06:14)
Mm-hmm.
Shachella James (06:29)
All of these things in terms of ⁓ preparation is literally why curiosity matters.
Ralph Owens (06:36)
That is amazing.
Terry Baylor (06:36)
So
a couple of things right there, right? So you start talking about different frameworks of types of questions. you maybe highlight what those are and what the intended outcome is for those questions? just here in your delivery, you said this kind of question is going to do this. Can you mind expounding on what those kind of questions are to help drive whatever the outcome is going to be?
Shachella James (07:06)
Right, yeah, so just reflecting back on those other three, remember we're learning to lead, so we're going in to learn it all and not know it all. So you're asking those who, what, why, when questions in a way that's going to invite some depth, not the typical yes, no questions for sure. And then we're asking to elevate. Remember, we're framing it such that the other person is enriched by the question, it's not just clarifying.
Terry Baylor (07:17)
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Shachella James (07:32)
And then we're building a culture of curiosity ⁓ where we're rewarding the individuals who are participating in that question and process. ⁓ Those are basically the ways that I would have the open-ended questions is typically where you would take somebody. So if you're going into a board meeting, a committee meeting, even a project meeting, something as simple as
⁓ As opposed to me asking the metric and I literally just did this yesterday. This is why this is so fresh instead of me asking the metric of how many defects is a cutover type of thing and they're going to give status. So instead of asking me instead of asking them about how many defects do we have?
Are we trending in the right direction post implementation? Let them interpret and give the insights as opposed to me asking that very pointed and very specific question. Cause I could say how many defects do we have right now coming out of the cut over, but that doesn't really encourage insightfulness and vision in them because the question would just be the, we have
10 defects. What? Is that really telling me anything?
Ralph Owens (08:56)
Gotcha. Gotcha.
Terry Baylor (08:56)
Right.
Shachella James (08:57)
So
it is asking, and this is what we mentioned earlier about two clicks down. So the high level question is how many defects are we seeing? But the real question is, ⁓ are we trending in the right direction? And that could be multiple things. User adoption, again, I'm a technologist, so I can't help but use the technology examples. What are our user adoption metrics looking like? ⁓ Did we actually affect
what percentage of the organization did we penetrate with training? So don't tell me 200 people were trained. How effective was training based on adoption and the sentiment that we're feeling right now? So those are just a couple of examples, Terri, that I can come up with, but I'm living it every day. again, not focused on the metric.
Terry Baylor (09:32)
Hmm
Ralph Owens (09:37)
screw you.
Terry Baylor (09:43)
Sure.
No, that's great.
Shachella James (09:55)
but what the metric is telling us on a trend, on a retrospective, on the two clicks down as one example. Even when you go to your doctor, okay, the doctor might tell you you weigh 210 pounds, but is that really important? It is if last year you weighed 180.
Ralph Owens (10:16)
Mmm, yeah, it's good.
Shachella James (10:18)
⁓
or if you had a recent circumstance in your life. So it's not just about the metric in an example. The question is, what is it telling us and how am I using that information to get to the bigger outcome? So the open-ended questions for sure.
Ralph Owens (10:25)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Good.
That's good. That's powerful.
Terry Baylor (10:38)
That's great. That's
great. And another thing I just want to just throw onto that, right? And in terms of being prepared, man, you know the topic that you're going to be discussing, go to the prompt and say, hey, I have this meeting. These are the folks that are going to be in that meeting. I want to address it from this standpoint. What are three good questions that will drive a ⁓ movement in this project?
Shachella James (11:06)
I
love it. I love it. I wish more people were encouraged to use any of their favorite AIs and GPTs that way. And you can do it in an iterative fashion and refine it too. But again, the power is in the prompt. You have to keep going and dig a lot deeper than the surface questions that people ask.
Ralph Owens (11:10)
Good.
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Terry Baylor (11:23)
Yes, yes.
Ralph Owens (11:23)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Shachella James (11:31)
And it goes so far, it goes so far. People should apply it to dating, quite frankly. I've been married for 27 years. And I did ask some good questions up front, but my goodness, I probably should ask some more.
Terry Baylor (11:31)
Yeah, because
Mmm.
That's a good one right there. We're gonna have to bring you back on that one.
Ralph Owens (11:43)
That's good. That's
Terry Baylor (11:46)
We got to be, look, look, there's some curiosity in your personal life that we got to start applying.
Ralph Owens (11:46)
good. That's so good. Come on. That is so good. That is so good. That is so good.
Shachella James (11:50)
Yeah.
Terry Baylor (11:57)
You know what though, let Ralph, if you don't mind, know we don't have a topic on this, I don't think, how is curiosity, so we're gonna flip it, right? Because what we've been talking about is curiosity from an external point, right? Things around us. How does curiosity or how do we leverage curiosity or how has it impacted you when we take that same curiosity and we take it and make it introspective?
Ralph Owens (12:00)
Now, please.
Shachella James (12:13)
⁓
Ralph Owens (12:24)
Mmm, that's good.
Shachella James (12:25)
you know, I love, ⁓ I love this. This is the second question I've been looking forward to today. it really makes you double down on your purpose, your personal purpose.
Terry Baylor (12:30)
Yeah
Mmm.
Ralph Owens (12:40)
Mm.
Terry Baylor (12:40)
Mmm.
Shachella James (12:41)
So
when you get to your personal why, I don't want to give Simon's too much credit, but yeah, why ask why kind of thing? Because your individual motivations do help God. And for me, I have one of my girlfriends who she says she admires about me, my persistence and my focus. And like the 12 marathons and I've done some other things where I have had to be
just so focused and intentional. But the introspective part of it, Mr. Terry, is where the focus and the discipline came from. Why do I want this? And do I really want it? Quite frankly, if you really look at the heart of discipline, why some people can get up in the morning and make their beds every day, and some people can't seem to
Terry Baylor (13:22)
Mmm.
Shachella James (13:40)
snooze and get up and make a movement, whatever. It's your personal fortitude as you look internally for what you are trying to get out of the day, the week, the month that you're living in. Now back to the compliment she gave in the sense of it was just a simple nutritional ⁓ activity that I was doing. I was doing a bodybuilding competition many, many years ago and I competed.
Terry Baylor (14:05)
Okay.
Shachella James (14:07)
I did really, I got to a national qualifier. ⁓ yeah, yeah. Maybe, man, Ralph, maybe you can ask me that question too. What, will you ask me what is it that my coworkers don't know? Okay, maybe there's a few more things. But when you look internally, it's literally where did I get the fortitude to be disciplined enough to get.
Ralph Owens (14:10)
Come on. What? ⁓ Wow. They don't know.
Terry Baylor (14:14)
People just don't know. Look,
don't let that smile fool you. Don't let that smile fool you.
Ralph Owens (14:24)
Yeah.
Shachella James (14:36)
on that stage where I could feel confident enough to prance in something that I can't even put my foot in right now, much less put on my whole body. ⁓
Ralph Owens (14:37)
Mm.
Hehehehehe
Terry Baylor (14:43)
⁓
Tell somebody you better wake up.
Shachella James (14:51)
I am not exaggerating at all, but that fortitude and that internal discipline. So when you look internally and you get back to that curiosity of ⁓ why, and I had just some health goals and it helped me to be focused. But when you are so clear on your why, then the decisions that you have to make every day. So she and my friends were complimenting me that if we would go out to dinner, I wouldn't have a cocktail.
Ralph Owens (15:20)
Mm.
Shachella James (15:21)
or I may not eat the potatoes or grotten. Why does that matter? Because I knew what my goal was. I knew what my why was. So in that internal fortitude, this curiosity forced me to answer that question for myself. So it actually wasn't hard. I look back and I appreciate her accomplishments for sure, but it was absolutely the easiest thing that I had to do.
Ralph Owens (15:24)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Baylor (15:29)
Mmm.
Ralph Owens (15:49)
Wow. Wow. That is amazing.
Shachella James (15:51)
And
it was so easy because I knew exactly why I was doing it. I knew exactly the risk and the outcomes. And number one, I didn't want to get on that stage and look like I shouldn't have been there either. So ⁓ that for me in terms of internal curiosity was the best question I could have ever asked myself and elevated myself to that vision of
Terry Baylor (16:07)
Hehehehehe
Ralph Owens (16:21)
Mm.
Terry Baylor (16:21)
Mmm.
Shachella James (16:22)
A more strategic flow of my life. I know it's so funny to apply corporate language to personal activity, but having a strategic view of my health, a strategic view of my social interactions as opposed to a tactical, it was more than that one meal. It was more, it was more than that cocktail.
Ralph Owens (16:40)
Mm. Mm.
Terry Baylor (16:41)
Sure.
Ralph Owens (16:44)
Yeah.