Leadership Sovereignty Podcast: Career Growth and Promotion

Most leaders are taught to have answers. The best ones have learned to ask better questions.

In this episode of the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast, host Ralph Owens and co-host Terry Baylor sit down with Shachella James — VP of Enterprise Systems and Platform Solutions at CenterPoint Energy, 12-time marathon runner, and national-level bodybuilding competitor — for a masterclass on how curiosity, used intentionally, becomes one of the most powerful tools in a leader's arsenal.

Shachella unpacks the biggest misconception about asking questions in the workplace — that curiosity signals ignorance — and flips it entirely. She introduces a framework built around three types of questions: questions that help you learn, questions that elevate others, and questions that build a culture of curiosity. She challenges leaders to go "two clicks down" — past the surface metric to what the data is actually telling you — and to prepare questions in advance rather than firing from the hip.

Ralph adds a critical insight from his own career: taking even 15 minutes to prepare thoughtful, context-specific questions before a meeting changes how you are perceived in the room. Terry pushes the conversation further, asking how curiosity turns inward — and Shachella's answer, rooted in her journey from boardroom to bodybuilding stage, is one of the most powerful moments of the episode.

If you want to be seen as a strategic thinker, build influence in the room, and lead from a place of depth — this episode will change how you ask questions forever.

Who this episode is for:
- Leaders who want to build executive presence and influence without having all the answers
- Professionals navigating meetings, boardrooms, or leadership conversations where perception matters
- Managers who want to create a culture where people think strategically, not just tactically
- Emerging and seasoned leaders looking to sharpen communication and leadership impact
- Anyone who wants to understand how internal curiosity drives discipline, focus, and career clarity

Key takeaways from this episode:
- Why curiosity is mistaken for ignorance — and how to use that misconception to your advantage
- The three-question framework: learn, elevate, and build a culture of curiosity
- How to ask "two clicks down" questions that reveal insight, not just data
- Why you should pepper in questions you already know the answer to
- How preparation transforms your presence and authority in any meeting
- How turning curiosity inward clarifies your why — and makes discipline effortless

🧾 Chapters
  • (00:00) - The Discipline Behind Curiosity
  • (00:51) - Misconceptions About Curiosity
  • (02:04) - The Power of Tailored and Timely Questions
  • (02:53) - When Curiosity Gets Mislabeled as Ignorance
  • (03:28) - Turning Perception Into Advantage
  • (04:21) - Preparation The Hidden Strength of Great Questions
  • (05:35) - Anticipating Gaps Before They Appear
  • (07:06) - Frameworks for Asking Better Questions
  • (08:57) - Going Two Clicks Deeper
  • (12:13) - When Curiosity Turns Inward

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📄 Full Episode Transcript

Creators and Guests

Guest
Shachella James
Shachella James is an award-winning technology professional with well over a decade of professional experience across multiple industries, consulting services, manufacturing banking, telecommunications, and now utilities. She is responsible for information and operational technologies, and enterprise architecture. Her expertise also spans strategic and capital planning, cloud services, data center operations and infrastructure operations. She is keen on workforce management and serving up the talent pipeline for the future.

What is Leadership Sovereignty Podcast: Career Growth and Promotion?

The Leadership Sovereignty Podcast, hosted by Ralph E. Owens II and co-hosted by Terry Baylor, is a career acceleration platform

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 bi-weekly.

Shachella James:

For me, I have one of my girlfriends who she says she admires about me, my persistence and my focus, and the 12 marathons, 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.

Shachella James:

Why

Shachella James:

do I want this and do I really want it?

Ralph Owens:

Welcome to the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast, where professionals learn to navigate challenges at work through the power of leadership principles. I'm Ralph Owens, Chief Information Officer in the financial services industry alongside my cohost, Terry Baylor, the CEO of a healthcare tech startup. Together, we've spent decades building teams, transforming organizations and coaching individuals through the moments that define their careers. We unpack the mindset, strategies and habits that help you lead with confidence, expand your influence, get promoted and increase your income. Now let's dive into today's episode.

Shachella James:

Thank for your input. Thank you for your input. So,

Ralph Owens:

what would you say some of the, common mistakes and misconceptions misconceptions are are about about curiosity? Curiosity? I

Shachella James:

would say a common mistake about curiosity is back to the abuse of it, is 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. Is a total misconception of curiosity. I do think that the questions should be sequenced. Like for example, if you can prepare for a meeting at all, you know there are some things that you may not know.

Shachella James:

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 ignorant. That's good. But questions tailored and timely, I'm coming up with all of these things right now, the power of the pump and the tethered and timely, the 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 that definitely sends the wrong message, you just kind of want to scream enough, let's move on, right? You just want to scream that.

Shachella James:

But curiosity, it's mistreated or when it's not appreciated, gets abused.

Ralph Owens:

That's right. That's right.

Shachella James:

Curiosity, when it's not appreciated, gets abused and gets mislabeled as ignorant. 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, Oh, oh, pick me, I have the question, because it's just from a blank slate, that blue sky and green field. And I love that education encourages curiosity. I don't know that corporate America does so much intentionally, but I have seen it rewarded.

Ralph Owens:

Interesting.

Shachella James:

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, that's what stood out to you the most, was that Ralph asked more questions. But I used that to my advantage, right? So if that's the perception around questions, but good questions, then use it to your advantage.

Shachella James:

But to me, that is the biggest misconception around curiosity, 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:

That's good. That's good. Yeah.

Shachella James:

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.

Ralph Owens:

That's good. Good. That's good.

Shachella James:

That's Yeah. Curiosity for ignorance, total misnomer, unless you're abusing it. Pepper in some questions that you already know the answer to and see where it takes you.

Ralph Owens:

These are some good, good frameworks. Oh, 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. Yeah.

Ralph Owens:

Right? Know, taking some, even if it's just fifteen minutes, to just have a thoughtful moment to say, these are the things that the topics we're gonna talk about, These are the things that I want to ask questions about. Make sure that they fit the context of the conversation, to your point. Don't be that guy.

Shachella James:

Don't be that guy. Be that 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 Ts and dotted your Is, but your audience may have a gap. 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.

Shachella James:

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? All of these things in terms of preparation is literally why curiosity matters. That is

Terry Baylor:

great- a couple things right there. Start talking about different frameworks of types of questions. Can you maybe highlight what those are and what the intended outcome is for those questions? Just hearing your delivery, you said this kind of question is going to do this. Do you mind expounding on what those kind of questions are to help drive whatever the outcome's gonna be?

Shachella James:

Right, yeah. 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. You're asking those who, what, why, when questions in a way that's gonna 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.

Shachella James:

And then we're building a culture of curiosity where we're rewarding the individuals who are participating in that questioning 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 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 gonna give status.

Shachella James:

So 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. Because I could say, how many defects do we have right now coming out of the cutover? But that doesn't really encourage insightfulness and vision in them, because the question would just be the, Oh, we have 10 defects. Well, is that really telling me anything?

Ralph Owens:

Gotcha.

Shachella James:

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.

Shachella James:

What are our user adoption metrics looking like? What percentage of the organization did we penetrate with training? Don't tell me 200 people were trained. Effective was training based on adoption and the sentiment that we're feeling right now.

Ralph Owens:

Sure.

Shachella James:

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, 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 two ten pounds, but is that really important? It is if last year you weighed one hundred and eighty.

Ralph Owens:

Yeah, that's good.

Shachella James:

Or if you had a recent circumstance in your life. So it's not just about the metric and an example, the question is, what is it telling us and how am I using that information to get to the bigger outcome? The open ended questions for sure.

Ralph Owens:

That's good. That's great. That's powerful. And

Terry Baylor:

the other thing I just wanna just throw onto that, in terms of being prepared, Man, you know the topic that you're gonna be discussing. Go to the prompt and say, hey, I have this meeting. These are the folks that are gonna be in that meeting. I wanna address it from this standpoint. What are three good questions that will drive a movement in this project?

Shachella James:

I love it. I love it.

Ralph Owens:

It's good.

Shachella James:

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, power is in the prompt. You have to keep going and dig a lot deeper than the surface questions that people ask. It goes so far as to People should apply it to dating, quite frankly.

Shachella James:

I've been married for twenty seven years, and I did ask some good questions up front, but my goodness, I probably should have asked some more. That's a good one.

Terry Baylor:

We're about to bring you back on that one. That's good. Look, look, that's a curiosity in your personal life

Shachella James:

that you can't just start applying.

Ralph Owens:

That is so good. That is so good. That is so good.

Terry Baylor:

You know what though? Ralph, if you don't mind, know we don't have a topic on this, I don't think, but how is curiosity 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 is it impacting you when we take that same curiosity and we take it and make it introspective?

Shachella James:

Oh, you know, I love this. This is the second question I've been looking forward to today, me and all that stuff. But it really makes you double down on your purpose, your personal purpose. So when you get to your personal why, and I don't want to give Simon Sinek too much credit, but yeah, why ask why kind of thing, because your individual motivations do help God. 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.

Shachella James:

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 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 sing the 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.

Shachella James:

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 I got to a national qualifier.

Ralph Owens:

Come on.

Shachella James:

What? Oh yeah.

Terry Baylor:

Wow. People just don't know

Shachella James:

they don't know. Look,

Terry Baylor:

don't let that smile fool you. Don't let that smile fool you.

Shachella James:

Well, you asked me, What is it that my coworkers don't know? Yeah. Okay. Maybe there's a few more things, you look internally, it's literally where did I get the fortitude to be disciplined enough to get on that stage where I could feel confident enough to prance in something that I can't even put my foot in right now, unless I put up my whole body.

Terry Baylor:

Tell somebody, you better wake up.

Shachella James:

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, or I may not eat the potatoes au gratin. Why does that matter? Because I knew what my goal was.

Ralph Owens:

That's good.

Shachella James:

I knew what my why was. 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:

Wow.

Shachella James:

It That's was, 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 wanna get on that stage and look like I shouldn't have been there. 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 a more strategic flow of my life. I know it's so funny to apply corporate language to personal activity, 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.

Shachella James:

It was more than that cocktail.

Ralph Owens:

Yeah. Thank you for listening to the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast. If today's conversation helped you grow in your leadership, influence or your career, take a moment to visit leadershipsovereignty.com. There you'll find exclusive resources, free guides and ways to stay connected to our community of leaders who are building purpose and success. Don't forget to rate, review and share this episode with someone who's on the rise in their career.

Ralph Owens:

Until next time, lead boldly, lead with purpose and continue to walk in sovereignty. Take care.