The WE-I Profile exposes the stress patterns quietly undermining your leadership and your team. The Curious Conversation Framework turns that insight into skills you can use immediately — in the conversations that actually count.
Most leaders believe they’re great communicators. Research says 9 out of 10 conversations are ineffective. Curiosity is the missing skill.
The Power of Curiosity gives you a proven, step-by-step framework to have real conversations — the kind that build trust, reduce conflict, and get results. Especially when the pressure is on.
A performance issue lingers for weeks because no one will say the hard thing out loud.
Team friction escalates to HR before anyone has tried to address it directly.
No one will challenge the most powerful person in the room — so nothing moves.
Talented people disengage quietly — long before it shows up in your retention data.
You’re not broken. You’re operating without a map of your own stress response — and without the specific conversation skills to navigate the moments that matter most.
That’s exactly what this work addresses.
The WE-I Profile makes the invisible visible: how you respond internally when pressure hits, where your blind spots live, and what patterns are quietly shaping your high-stakes interactions. The Curious Conversation Framework then gives you the precise skills to respond differently — not someday, but in the next difficult conversation you face.
Together, they turn capable leaders into reliably effective ones. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.
A Complete System — From Insight To Impact
Most leadership development stops at awareness. You learn something interesting about yourself, then walk back into the same environment and repeat the same patterns under pressure.
This is different. Every stage builds on the last. By the end, you don’t just understand your stress response — you know exactly what to do with it.
For individual leaders and teams.
See exactly how stress is shaping your leadership — and your team’s.
The WE-I Profile captures the specific non-conscious patterns driving behaviour when pressure hits — not personality types or style labels. A precise map of where you struggle, where your team gets stuck, and why.
WHAT YOU RECEIVEIndividual: Your personal WE-I report revealing your stress patterns, blind spots, and leadership strengths and vulnerabilities under pressure.Team: A personal WE-I report for every participant + a team report showing collective strengths and vulnerabilities under pressure.
Data without context is just noise.
You receive a guided debrief that connects your WE-I results to real moments you recognize — making blind spots visible without feeling like an attack. The team debrief creates a shared language for what’s actually happening under pressure.
WHAT YOU RECEIVEIndividual: Your personal debrief session connecting your WE-I results to real moments you recognize.Team: Individual debrief sessions for each participant + a team debrief that brings the collective picture into focus.
Built directly from your WE-I results — not a generic workshop.
You learn the specific conversation skills that address the exact patterns your assessment revealed. Curiosity as a practisable skill. Real techniques for the conversations that used to derail you.
WHAT YOU RECEIVEIndividual: A tailored skill session built from your WE-I results + a practical conversation playbook you can return to again and again.Team: A tailored skill session built from your collective WE-I results + a practical conversation playbook your whole team can return to.
You’ve probably heard the term. Maybe you’ve even tried to build it. But here’s what most leaders don’t realise:
Psychological safety doesn’t come from programs, perks, or ping pong tables. It comes from conversations. Specifically — how your people feel during conversations when the stakes are high, the pressure is on, and emotions are running hot.
When people feel safe to speak up, challenge ideas, and disagree constructively — teams innovate, perform, and grow.
When they don’t?
They go quiet. They play it safe. They tell you what you want to hear. Groupthink takes over. Accountability slips. Performance suffers. And the best ideas never make it to the table.
The uncomfortable truth?
Most leaders want psychological safety but unintentionally undermine it — not because they’re bad leaders, but because under stress, even the best of us default to patterns that shut conversations down instead of opening them up.
Defensiveness. Reactivity. Shutting down. Taking over.
It happens to everyone. And most people don’t even see it happening.
That’s not a character flaw. It’s a stress response. And it’s exactly what this work addresses.
When leaders learn to stay curious under pressure — to ask instead of assume, to listen instead of react, to stay open instead of defensive — psychological safety stops being a goal and starts being a natural outcome.
Curiosity is the foundation psychological safety is built on. And the key to unlocking it? Understanding what you can’t see about yourself under stress.
Most team problems aren’t skill problems. They’re communication problems — and they get worse under pressure.
Here’s what nobody talks about when building teams: stress.
Stress isn’t factored into hiring decisions. It’s not considered when teams are put together. Yet how your people show up under pressure is the single greatest predictor of whether your team will succeed or fail.
When stress hits, people shut down, speak up less, and default to old patterns. Conflict festers. Decisions slow. Trust erodes. Performance suffers — not because your people aren’t capable, but because nobody taught them how to stay curious when it counts.
That’s exactly what I fix.
Using the WE-I Profile, I go beyond individual insight. Every team member completes their own profile — then I look at the team as a whole.
This reveals what no performance review ever will:
This isn’t generic team training. This is a custom roadmap built around how your specific team actually thinks, reacts, and leads when the pressure is on.
Even in high-stakes moments.
Conflict becomes collaboration.
People speak up, take risks, and hold themselves accountable.
Blind spots stop derailing performance.
Whether managing up, down, or across.
Whether you’re exploring this for yourself or ready to bring it to your team — there’s a clear next step.
Before I became an executive coach I was a competitive swimmer training at the highest level. Then I spent a decade in high-stakes entertainment industry where pressure was the baseline and performance was non-negotiable.
What both worlds taught me is this: the leaders who perform best under pressure aren’t the ones who know the most. They’re the ones who understand themselves most clearly.
That insight became the foundation of everything I do.
I’m the only practitioner who combines the WE-I Profile — the only EQ assessment that captures internal stress response — with a proprietary Curious Conversation Framework built from fifteen years of working with leaders across healthcare, government, law, financial services, technology, non-profits, education, and entertainment.
The assessment reveals the pattern. The framework changes it. No one else has built this combination.
Warm. Direct. Honest. I create space for leaders to see themselves clearly — without shame, without judgment, and without the defensiveness that usually shuts these conversations down before they start.
My clients describe our sessions as the most honest conversations they’ve had about their own leadership — and the most immediately useful.
Based in Kelowna BC. Working virtually with leaders and organizations across Canada.
TEDx Speaker · ICF Certified · Certified WE-I Individual & Teams Practitioner · Executive Coach Royal Roads · CPHR Industry Partner · National Psychological Health and Safety Professional Certificate from CMHA · BA Dalhousie University · Co-Author Best Selling Book The Power Of Curiosity: How To Have Real Conversations That Create Collaboration, Innovation, and Understanding.
The discovery call is free. Thirty minutes. No pitch, no pressure. Just a conversation about what’s happening for you or your team and whether this is the right fit.
Book your discovery call →
Thirty minutes. Free. No pitch and no pressure — just a clear-eyed discussion about what’s happening for you or your team and whether this work is the right fit.
Most people leave the call with a clear next step — whether that’s working together or not.
Kirsten Siggins · Institute of Curiosity · Kelowna BC · kirsten@instituteofcuriosity.com
Most people shut down under pressure. This book teaches you to do the opposite — and it changes everything.
Be Present When It Matters Most. Learn how to show up fully in every conversation, even when distractions, emotions, and stress are pulling you in every direction.
Choose How You Listen. Discover the five listening choices available to you in every conversation — and how to use them to build trust, reduce defensiveness, and create real understanding.
Ask Better Questions. Master the art of curious, open questions that expand dialogue, spark new ideas, and transform conflict into collaboration.
Deepen Self-Awareness. Gain a clearer understanding of your core values, recognize the emotional triggers that shape how you show up, and learn how to set healthy boundaries that protect your wellbeing and your relationships.
Turn Conflict Into Connection. Follow a step-by-step process to approach even the most challenging conversations with calm, clarity, and confidence.
Kirsten Siggins & Kathy Taberner Mother-Daughter Founders | Institute of Curiosity Certified Emotional Intelligence Practitioners | Certified Executive Coaches | TEDx Speakers
Kirsten and Kathy have spent decades helping leaders, teams, and organizations communicate better under pressure. Together they co-founded the Institute of Curiosity and developed the curiosity-based conversation framework that underpins everything they do — including this book.
Their work is rooted in neuroscience, emotional intelligence, and one simple belief: that curiosity is the most powerful leadership skill most people never learned how to use.
The book gives you the framework. The discovery call puts it into action.
Kirsten Siggins · Institute of Curiosity · Kelowna BC · kirsten@instituteofcuriosity.com
Stay Curious When It Counts.
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