Fostering Curiosity in Professional Military Education

Evidence-Based Interventions for Developing Adaptive Leaders

Nolan C. Lovett

NATO Special Operations University

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Abstract

Military operations now occur in environments defined by rapidly evolving technologies, shifting adversarial tactics, and complex, often asymmetric threats. While traditional training remains essential, it may be insufficient for developing the adaptability required for unpredictable scenarios. This article synthesizes findings from research examining specific interventions that can enhance curiosity in professional military education (PME) across NATO member nations. Drawing on empirical evidence from the workplace and educational settings, the article analyzes four evidence-based approaches: mystery techniques, game-based methods, autonomy-supporting frameworks, and mindfulness practices, and translates them to military learning contexts. The article addresses implementation challenges within hierarchical military organizations and offers practical guidance for embedding curiosity interventions into PME. By introducing partial information reveals, gamified simulations, reflective mindfulness, and structured autonomy, PME instructors can create environments that encourage inquiry while maintaining the discipline essential to military operations, thereby equipping leaders to navigate increasingly complex operational environments.

The Evolving Complexity of Multidomain Operations

Contemporary military operations unfold in environments defined by unprecedented complexity across multiple domains simultaneously. Today’s conflicts require coordinated actions across land, sea, air, space, cyber, and electromagnetic domains. This creates cognitive demands far beyond traditional single-domain thinking. Multidomain operations (MDO) involve orchestrating military activities across all domains and environments, synchronized with nonmilitary activities to create converging effects at relevant speeds (NATO, 2023a).

The ongoing conflict in Ukraine demonstrates that military success now depends on rapid adaptation to unforeseen circumstances, from electronic warfare disruptions to rapid drone warfare innovations to synchronized information operations. While traditional military education emphasizes mastery of doctrine and standardized procedures, leaders now require additional cognitive tools to identify and respond to emerging cross-domain threats.

NATO nations must develop educational approaches that aggressively cultivate intellectual agility and adaptive mindsets in their leaders to achieve the intellectual overmatch needed to outperform adversaries in future warfare (Lyngfjell, 2023). This intellectual capability represents a decisive element in modern conflict. This article introduces workplace curiosity, defined as an individual’s drive to explore and understand new information and experiences within their professional environment, as a vital capability for developing this intellectual overmatch and producing multidomain adaptive leaders.

This focus aligns with the concept of intellectual edge, a deliberate cultivation of cognitive capabilities that complement technological advantages (Ryan, 2020). Modern militaries must invest in developing adaptive, curious leaders to achieve this advantage over adversaries. This supports NATO’s cognitive superiority warfare development imperative, which emphasizes understanding the operating environment and potential adversaries relative to the alliance’s capabilities (NATO, 2023b).

Gen. Philippe Lavigne, formerly NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, reinforces this perspective, arguing that investment in people is as important as investment in technology and that enhancing education and training equips NATO personnel with the skills and adaptive thinking needed to anticipate future challenges and outpace adversaries. His call for NATO nations to modernize their mindset, leadership development, and force preparation places curiosity-driven education at the center of alliance transformation efforts (Lavigne, 2023).

The importance of curiosity extends beyond innovation to fundamental leadership capabilities. Military organizations often prioritize obedience at the expense of inquisitiveness, yet senior leaders must learn how to ask the right questions to define problems and guide action effectively (Hill & Gerras, 2020). This underscores curiosity’s role not merely as an individual trait but as a leadership competency essential for operational effectiveness. This aligns with NATO’s outthink and outpace functions that require leaders to anticipate threats and act faster than potential adversaries (NATO, 2023b).

Recent operations in Ukraine illustrate the adaptive requirements of future warfare. Ukrainian defenders who actively questioned assumptions about technological applications have successfully adapted commercial drones for battlefield targeting and surveillance, countered advanced electronic warfare systems through rapid iteration, and integrated cyber operations with physical effects. These adaptations highlight how curiosity enhances operational effectiveness by enabling disciplined disobedience, where leaders critically assess situations and, when necessary, deviate from standard procedures to achieve mission success (Milburn, 2021). Ukraine’s investment in leader development and initiative-driven leadership culture has provided a key battlefield advantage over Russia’s more rigid, top-down approach (Hatzinger & Schaefer, 2025). Ukrainian forces have demonstrated that adaptability, decentralized initiative, and skilled use of emerging technology are essential for success in the contemporary operational environment (Langum, 2024), providing real-world validation of the importance of curiosity-driven leadership.

Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Workplace Curiosity

The impact of curiosity in professional settings builds on fundamental theoretical frameworks, particularly relevant to MDO. Early conceptualizations of curiosity describe it as a drive to explore and learn (Berlyne, 1954). This was later refined by information-gap theory (Loewenstein, 1994), which explains how curiosity motivates professionals to identify and address knowledge deficits. This mechanism becomes particularly salient when military leaders must operate across unfamiliar domains and technologies, creating precisely the knowledge gaps that trigger curiosity.

Workplace curiosity is spurred by factors like novelty, ambiguity, and complexity, all characteristics of modern multidomain battlespaces. This drive can manifest as either an enjoyable interest or a pressing need to resolve uncertainty, and it motivates individuals to actively seek knowledge and address gaps in their understanding. The distinction between interest-type and deprivation-type curiosity (Litman, 2005) further illuminates how these motivational processes operate. The former drives broad exploration of emerging domains, and the latter prompts focused efforts to resolve specific uncertainties in cross-domain operations.

A significant theoretical distinction with practical implications for military education lies between general and specific curiosity. General curiosity represents a broad dispositional interest in exploring new information across domains, while specific curiosity involves targeted information-seeking in particular contexts. Interventions targeting general curiosity demonstrate substantially larger effect sizes (g = 0.93) than those focusing on domain-specific curiosity (g = 0.55) (Schutte & Malouff, 2023). This suggests that developing broad intellectual curiosity rather than narrowly focused inquiry yields stronger results in military education contexts. This finding aligns with NATO’s cross-domain command imperative, which requires leaders who can think beyond traditional domain boundaries and make connections across previously separate operational spaces.

Workplace research has established curiosity’s crucial role in professional effectiveness through multiple pathways directly applicable to military contexts. Curiosity demonstrates incremental validity in predicting job performance beyond established factors like general mental ability and conscientiousness (Mussel, 2013). Curious professionals demonstrate greater innovation (Celik et al., 2016) and enhanced problem-solving capabilities (Hardy et al., 2017). These are all critical requirements for military leaders operating in rapidly evolving multidomain environments.

Curiosity enhances workplace learning by increasing information-seeking, which, in turn, predicts job performance (Reio & Wiswell, 2000). It helps professionals manage socialization challenges, mediating between negative emotions and learning outcomes (Reio & Callahan, 2004). These findings align with identification of curiosity as the third pillar of academic performance (von Stumm et al., 2011), suggesting its fundamental role in the professional development of military leaders confronting technological change.

A comprehensive meta-analysis of 41 randomized controlled trials with 4,496 participants provides strong research evidence for the effectiveness of curiosity interventions. These interventions significantly increase curiosity with a moderate overall impact (Schutte & Malouff, 2023). This quantitative validation strengthens the case for implementing curiosity-enhancing approaches within NATO nations’ PME frameworks as part of achieving the intellectual overmatch critical for future warfare.

The Role of Curiosity in Multidomain Operations

The cognitive (knowledge) and attitudinal (instinctual) aspects of thinking help explain why attitudes like curiosity and judgment are harder to teach yet essential for developing leaders capable of operating in uncertain, complex environments (Augier & Barrett, 2019). Military education must move beyond an industrial age model to foster intellectual curiosity that develops judgment and open-mindedness in officers.

In multidomain military operations, curiosity manifests in several critical ways beyond traditional battlefield applications. It drives cross-domain information-seeking behavior, which is essential for comprehensive situation awareness and multispectrum threat assessment. It motivates the exploration of technological capabilities and their applications across domain boundaries, such as the intersection of cyber effects with physical operations, as demonstrated in Ukraine. Curiosity fosters continuous technical learning necessary for mastering rapidly evolving capabilities like autonomous systems and artificial intelligence. Additionally, it supports adaptive leadership by enabling commanders to recognize and respond to unanticipated cross-domain scenarios, such as adversary actions that combine electromagnetic, cyber, and kinetic effects simultaneously. These applications align with NATO’s cognitive superiority imperative (NATO, 2023b).

Mystery Techniques

Mystery- or uncertainty-based approaches for enhancing curiosity parallel the inherent ambiguity of MDO and show the highest empirical effectiveness among curiosity interventions. Mystery techniques strategically withhold or incrementally reveal information, creating perceived knowledge gaps that participants feel compelled to fill. This sense of not yet knowing sparks curiosity by tapping into learners’ intrinsic motivation to reduce uncertainty (Loewenstein, 1994).

Mystery-based interventions demonstrate particularly high effectiveness across multiple studies (Schutte & Malouff, 2023). Studies employing strategic uncertainty, such as guessing the origins of cryptic images with gradual information reveals, achieve some of the strongest results in curiosity research (Ruan et al., 2018). These findings have clear applications for PME across NATO nations, where cultivating adaptive, flexible thinkers directly supports NATO’s cognitive superiority imperative by developing the intellectual agility essential for outthinking adversaries (Lyngfjell, 2023).

Evidence from mystery-based interventions shows consistently positive effects through approaches like incomplete information, stepwise reveals, and ambiguous clues that stimulate investigation (Hill et al., 2016; Isikman et al., 2016; Ruan et al., 2018; Sääksjärvi et al., 2017). Notably, these interventions are typically brief yet yield substantial improvements in participants’ curiosity (Schutte & Malouff, 2023).

From a psychological standpoint, the power of mystery rests on information gaps, situations in which individuals recognize that knowledge is missing. By piquing a learner’s sense of wonder or uncertainty, mystery-based tasks leverage curiosity’s motivational force, driving learners to seek answers. This principle aligns naturally with scenario-based learning and war-gaming that incorporate cross-domain effects and technological uncertainties in military education.

Traditional PME within NATO member states often fails to harness service members’ innate curiosity despite their ready access to factual information. In the information age, military personnel can instantly answer factual questions via Google, yet PME systems haven’t effectively channeled that natural inquisitiveness (Whitcher, 2021). Mystery-based approaches directly address this gap by creating engineered knowledge gaps that engage learners’ natural drive to explore.

Applying Mystery Techniques in PME

The mystery approach can be translated to multidomain military education through several practical applications. First, instructors can present partial intelligence about adversary capabilities in specific domains, revealing conventional force dispositions while withholding cyber and space capabilities, then progressively disclosing how these capabilities interact. Second, PME can incorporate intelligence problems requiring identification of connections between seemingly disparate activities across domains, forcing students to hypothesize cross-domain relationships. Third, tactical decision exercises can introduce unfamiliar technological capabilities, challenging students to discover their applications across domains. These applications mirror Ukraine conflict dynamics, where forces continually discover new adversary electronic warfare, drone, and cyber capabilities, requiring rapid adaptation.

Implementing mystery-based approaches in multidomain PME requires balancing challenge with feasibility; withheld information must be relevant yet not render tasks unsolvable. Instructors should strategically schedule intelligence releases across domains, allowing learners to iteratively refine their understanding of how actions in one domain affect others. This gradual unfolding mirrors the persistent, simultaneous, and boundless nature of the future operational environment described in NATO’s strategic concepts, where boundaries between domains increasingly blur (NATO, 2023b). Assessment should focus on practical metrics such as cross-domain question frequency, multidomain solution creativity, and initiative-taking across traditional domain boundaries.

Game-Based Strategies

Game-based methods encompass any structured activity with defined rules, objectives, and challenges that engage participants in active problem-solving. In military education, this includes war games, tabletop exercises, role-playing scenarios, case-study competitions, map exercises, and simulation-based training. These approaches represent the second most empirically effective method for enhancing curiosity in educational settings, demonstrating significant effectiveness (g = 0.54, p < .001) across multiple studies (Schutte & Malouff, 2023).

War-gaming has particular relevance for military education. The Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC, 2017), the UK Ministry of Defence’s lead for doctrine, defines a war game as “a scenario-based warfare model in which the outcome and sequence of events affect, and are affected by, the decisions made by the players” (p. 5). Games foster curiosity by creating structured uncertainty where participants must actively investigate to succeed. Unlike lectures that provide information directly, games present problems that require exploration, hypothesis testing, and iterative learning. Whether conducting a map exercise exploring defensive positions or role-playing a multistakeholder crisis response, participants encounter situations where their existing knowledge proves insufficient, compelling them to seek new information and question assumptions.

The power of game-based approaches lies in their ability to create what military educators recognize as essential learning conditions. Games provide immersive environments that represent real-world friction, uncertainties, and the “fog of war” while allowing students to make decisions and experience consequences in a “safe-to-fail” environment (DCDC, 2017, p. 24). This cycle of challenge, failure, investigation, and adaptation naturally generates curiosity as participants recognize gaps in their understanding and become motivated to fill them. Games transform abstract military concepts into concrete problems that demand active engagement rather than passive absorption.

Applying Game-Based Strategies in PME

Military education can leverage the full spectrum of game-based activities to develop curiosity. Traditional map exercises where students must analyze terrain, enemy capabilities, and friendly resources to develop operational plans naturally generate questions about intelligence gaps and force interactions. Role-playing exercises that place students in different command positions compel them to understand diverse perspectives and investigate how decisions at different levels affect overall outcomes.

Tactical decision games represent one of the most accessible forms of educational gaming in military contexts. These “decision-making exercises under pressure” present tactical scenarios where participants must analyze situations and draft orders in response, developing critical thinking skills through structured practice (Bae, 2023). Case-study competitions, where teams compete to develop solutions to historical or hypothetical strategic challenges, foster curiosity through structured investigation. Students must research contexts, analyze available options, and defend their reasoning against peer scrutiny.

Tabletop exercises that simulate crisis response or planning scenarios require participants to work through complex, multifaceted problems with incomplete information. As scenarios evolve and new complications arise, participants must continuously reassess their understanding and seek additional information. The time pressure and evolving nature of these exercises mirror real operational environments while creating safe spaces for intellectual risk-taking and exploration.

Historical war-gaming provides another avenue for developing curiosity by requiring students to research primary sources, understand decision-making contexts, and grapple with the information available to historical commanders. This approach fosters deep investigation into strategic thinking under uncertainty while developing appreciation for the challenges of command decision-making across different eras and contexts. The Marine Corps experience demonstrates both the potential and challenges of sustaining educational war-gaming programs, with initiatives like TACWAR showing promise before declining due to institutional pressures and competing priorities (Bae & Brown, 2021).

Simple tactical decision games using nothing more than paper scenarios can effectively generate curiosity when properly designed. The key is presenting problems that resist obvious solutions and require participants to question assumptions, gather information, and adapt their thinking. After-action reviews become critical learning opportunities where participants examine not just what they decided, but how they thought through problems and what information they wished they had sought earlier.

As Bae and Brown (2021) observe, different games serve different educational purposes and no single approach works for all situations, requiring educators to carefully match game selection to specific learning objectives. Games succeed in fostering curiosity when they present problems that cannot be solved through rote application of doctrine or procedure. Whether using elaborate simulations or simple scenario discussions, the goal remains consistent: compelling participants to investigate, question, and discover rather than simply apply predetermined solutions. When properly integrated with other educational methods, war-gaming becomes part of a “cycle of research”—an iterative process where the tools a military uses to explore, understand, and prepare for future conflict mutually reinforce learning and development (DCDC, 2017, p. 25).

Effective implementation requires attention to psychological safety and intrinsic motivation. Psychological safety, defined as the belief that one can express ideas and take risks without fear of negative consequences, is essential for curiosity to flourish in learning environments (Edmondson & Lei, 2014). Games work because they create contexts where failure provides valuable information rather than negative consequences, directly supporting the autonomy need by removing external pressure and punishment (Ryan et al., 2006). Military educators can achieve similar effects by framing exercises as learning opportunities where “wrong” answers reveal important insights into the complexity of operational problems. This approach transforms the military education challenge of encouraging questioning behavior within hierarchical structures by creating designated spaces where curiosity is not only permitted but also necessary for success.

Autonomy-Supporting Frameworks

Autonomy-supporting frameworks provide learners freedom to select topics, methods, or activities aligned with their interests, creating another avenue for enhancing curiosity. When individuals perceive control over what and how they learn, they experience heightened intrinsic motivation to explore (Kashdan & Fincham, 2004). In military education, structured autonomy becomes particularly valuable for developing officers who take initiative and pursue deeper understanding independently.

Autonomy-based interventions show more modest effects compared to mystery and game-based approaches (Schutte & Malouff, 2023). However, the qualitative alignment between autonomy-supporting frameworks and NATO’s emphasis on disciplined initiative in mission command makes this approach particularly relevant despite its more modest empirical effects. NATO forces must develop leaders capable of decentralized decision-making in complex environments, a capability directly supported by autonomy-based educational approaches (Lavigne, 2023).

Research on autonomy as a mechanism for spurring curiosity shows that adult learners demonstrate increased curiosity when given choice in learning topics, while studies with children show limited benefits (Arnone & Grabowski, 1992; Schutte & Malouff, 2019). This suggests autonomy is more effective for mature learners with established self-regulation skills, precisely the demographic in most PME settings. Officers and NCOs typically bring considerable professional experience and intrinsic motivation to their education, making them ideal candidates for autonomy-based approaches.

Applying Autonomy in PME

Several complementary approaches can integrate autonomy into military education contexts. Staff colleges can allow students to choose particular regional security issues, emerging technologies, or historical campaigns for research projects. This leverages personal interests while ensuring operational relevance through appropriate parameters. PME programs can offer elective modules that enable learners to self-select sessions aligned with their interests, maintaining core curriculum requirements while allowing personalized exploration. Within standardized tactical exercises, instructors can build decision points where students choose between different approaches, forcing deeper consideration of options and their implications. Additionally, self-directed professional reading programs with some degree of choice and associated discussion forums create more engagement than mandatory assigned texts alone.

These approaches support the concept of disciplined disobedience, where effective mission command requires leaders to critically assess situations and, when necessary, deviate from standard procedures to achieve mission success (Milburn, 2021). By developing autonomy within educational settings, PME cultivates the judgment alongside initiative required for such adaptability. This approach connects directly to emerging shifts in NCO development that emphasize assertive communication, empowering decentralized decision-making, and other competencies to enable agile leadership across domains (Dos Santos & Perdue, 2023).

The Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard provides a compelling case study of successful implementation. By shifting from a traditional, hierarchical culture to one encouraging risk-taking, adaptation, and empowerment, the organization not only improved performance but expanded the notion of leadership in the Navy (Oppermann & Nault, 2021). Transformational leadership practices like flattened communication, rewarded initiative, and tolerance for honest mistakes created an environment where curiosity flourished while maintaining operational effectiveness. Implementation should include sufficient scaffolding, research guidelines, source recommendations, and analytical frameworks to help learners effectively explore their chosen topics.

Mindfulness Practices

Mindfulness practices involve developing a nonjudgmental, accepting awareness of moment-to-moment experience. While the direct effect of mindfulness interventions on curiosity is modest compared to other methods (Schutte & Malouff, 2023), these practices cultivate underlying cognitive conditions, particularly metacognitive awareness, that enable curiosity to flourish, especially in high-stress environments (Bishop et al., 2004).

Mindfulness encourages an attitude of openness and inquiry toward one’s internal and external environments. By training individuals to observe their experiences without immediate judgment, mindfulness reduces reliance on cognitive biases and reflexive actions while developing metacognitive awareness—the ability to observe and monitor one’s own thinking processes (Keng et al., 2011; Maymin & Langer, 2021). This metacognitive capacity is crucial for curiosity development because it helps individuals recognize knowledge gaps, question assumptions, and become aware of what they don’t know, which are precisely the conditions that trigger curiosity.

Research demonstrates that mindfulness training increases what psychologists call “decentering” or “meta-awareness,” the ability to step back from immediate subjective experience and observe thoughts, emotions, and mental processes as temporary mental events rather than absolute truths (Keng et al., 2011). This cognitive flexibility is essential for leaders operating in the ambiguity of MDO, where established patterns may not apply and novel threats require fresh perspectives. By developing the capacity to observe their own thinking, military leaders become better able to recognize when their current mental models are insufficient, creating the intellectual humility necessary for genuine inquiry and learning.

This metacognitive foundation also supports what mindfulness researchers identify as core attitudes of “curiosity, openness, and acceptance” toward present-moment experience (Bishop et al., 2004). These attitudes directly counter the cognitive rigidity and defensive thinking that can inhibit curiosity in high-pressure military environments, creating psychological conditions where questioning and exploration become natural rather than threatening.

Applying Mindfulness in PME

Integrating mindfulness into PME can take several forms. Short, focused attention exercises can be incorporated into classroom sessions or simulations to help students regulate stress and improve focus. Furthermore, reflective practices that encourage leaders to examine their own decision-making processes and assumptions, a core component of mindfulness, can be integrated into debriefs and leadership development modules. By fostering cognitive clarity, PME can enhance leaders’ ability to perceive novelty and complexity across domains, thereby stimulating curiosity.

Barriers and Implementation Strategies in Military Contexts

Despite its benefits, implementing curiosity in military education presents unique challenges that require thoughtful solutions. Several persistent barriers to curiosity exist in military organizations. Rank-based hierarchy inhibits questioning, especially from junior personnel, as fear of appearing incompetent or challenging authority may suppress essential inquiry. The emphasis on standardized procedures creates cultures where deviation is discouraged, while a “zero-defect” mentality makes personnel reluctant to explore new approaches for fear of failure. High operational demands favor expedient solutions over exploratory approaches. Personnel may feel unsafe expressing uncertainty or revealing knowledge gaps, particularly in public settings.

Military organizations often prioritize operational tempo and obedience at the expense of reflection and scholarship, creating fundamental tension with curiosity development (Foster, 1996). Military education tends to pay lip service to critical thinking while dismissing academic or contrarian perspectives as “too academic,” reinforcing cultures that subtly discourage questioning (Antrobus & West, 2022). A fundamental challenge is the military’s historical bias toward informational learning (adding new knowledge) rather than transformational learning (changing how we think) (Upward, 2024). This creates resistance to approaches that challenge existing mental models or ways of operating, the essence of curiosity-driven learning.

Implementation Insights

Despite these challenges, empirical evidence offers encouraging implementation insights. Intervention duration matters significantly; longer interventions (more than one day) produce notably larger effects than brief interventions (Schutte & Malouff, 2023). This finding has important implications for NATO nations’ PME design, suggesting sustained curiosity development programs yield stronger results than one-time activities.

Curiosity interventions demonstrate remarkable robustness across different implementation contexts. Factors such as intervention type, assessment method, and participant type show no statistically significant differences in effectiveness (Schutte & Malouff, 2023). This flexibility proves particularly valuable for NATO with its diverse member nations and military education traditions. While certain approaches show stronger effects, the overall robustness means that NATO member nations’ PME institutions can adapt implementation to their specific contexts while achieving positive results.

Effective implementation requires multiple complementary strategies. First, connect curiosity explicitly to operational effectiveness by framing intellectual exploration as intelligence preparation or adaptive leadership under mission command. Second, create specific “safe spaces” for inquiry where hierarchy is temporarily flattened, embodying the leadership principle of valuing ideas over rank. Third, assign top officers as instructors and design curricula with critical thinking tools, as recommended by Adair (2021). Fourth, model curiosity through instructor behavior by asking genuine questions and acknowledging uncertainty. Finally, balance structure and exploration with “bounded curiosity” that maintains necessary parameters while encouraging inquiry.

Measuring curiosity intervention impact requires multifaceted assessment. Self-report and behavioral measures yield comparable results, suggesting military educators can confidently employ either approach based on available resources (Schutte & Malouff, 2023). Assessment strategies should include validated curiosity assessment instruments complemented by behavioral observations of question quality, voluntary research beyond requirements, and innovative approaches in exercises.

Conclusion

As warfare increasingly spans multiple domains with rapidly evolving technological capabilities, cultivating curiosity becomes not merely beneficial but essential for military effectiveness. The cognitive flexibility required for simultaneous operations across physical, cyber, information, space, and electromagnetic domains depends on leaders who continuously question assumptions, explore unfamiliar capabilities, and recognize novel patterns across domain boundaries. Research provides strong validation for this approach, demonstrating that curiosity interventions produce consistent, moderate effects across diverse contexts (Schutte & Malouff, 2023).

Evidence from Ukraine and other contemporary conflicts demonstrates that curious, adaptable forces gain decisive advantages through technological innovation and cross-domain integration. Forces that rapidly explore novel applications of commercial technologies, question traditional operational boundaries, and adapt to emerging threats consistently outperform those bound by doctrinal thinking and domain-specific approaches.

Curiosity development represents not merely an individual benefit but a strategic military advantage, an intellectual edge essential for future warfare (Ryan, 2020). Organizations that successfully cultivate curiosity and initiative maintain operational effectiveness while becoming more adaptive and innovative.

For PME practitioners preparing leaders for future warfare, this research suggests several key actions:

• Integrate approaches prioritized by effectiveness: mystery, game-based, autonomy-supporting, and mindfulness practices (see Table 1).
• Maximize effectiveness by utilizing longer interventions and targeting general rather than specific curiosity.
• Design learning experiences incorporating multidomain ambiguity and technological complexity that stimulate curiosity while maintaining necessary structure.
• Create “safe spaces” for questioning domain boundaries and exploring technological applications.
• Connect curiosity explicitly to multidomain integration and adaptability in contested environments to demonstrate its operational relevance.

By recognizing curiosity as a core leadership competency for MDO, military education enhances the ability to adapt, innovate, and maintain strategic advantage in 21st-century battlespaces. Future advantage will belong not to forces with technological superiority alone but to those whose leaders possess the curiosity to identify and exploit cross-domain opportunities first.

Disclaimer

The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of NATO, Allied Special Operations Forces Command, NATO Special Operations University, or the U.S. Department of War or its components.

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June 2026