Introverted leaders in an extroverted culture.

This wasn’t a social experiment, but it felt like one.

Let me start with my caveat — I’m not biased towards introverts. For any company or team to be successful you need a compliment of both introverted and extroverted people. The Yin and Yang effect. This article tells you what I’ve observed, as a 92% weighted introvert, in a company heavily weighted with extroverted leaders.

It was summer 2014, in a terribly decorated conference room in a hotel in Reading, England when I genuinely felt I wasn’t going to fit inside the culture of my company. The moment itself was more an acceptance that my way of working felt sane by comparison to the rest. What triggered this moment was a question posed by the facilitator in the leadership course; “When do you give yourself thinking time at work?” Everyone had the same answer — “We don’t get time to think, we’re too busy going meeting to meeting”. I was amazed by this response and I felt compelled to respond, it wasn’t a desire to speak for the sake of speaking, it was born out of passion for what I felt was right. I simply wanted to show these people that if they took some time and evaluated their contribution and productivity, then surely they conclude they had to make a fundamental change, not just for their own wellbeing, but for the success of the company.

My response was simple; “I give myself thinking time almost anytime I want, because I have to, otherwise I won’t be productive. Where possible I don’t allow my diary to impact the importance of my thinking time”. The look on their faces were one of shock that I openly admitted “I have time” — The reaction was born out of a culture that rewards busyness and visibility over productivity and output. The responses were presented to me as a defence or excuse, rather than exploratory questions to find out how I’ve come to work this way. I was in a room of 50 people and felt alone. It made me curious enough to start taking more opportunities to observe the wider leadership in the company. The output of these observations centred around a consistent theme in the leaders, the majority were extroverts.

As many people experience when they join a new company or progress in their career, they are asked to take some form of psychometric test. I’ve completed many during my career. I’ve always settled on the Myers Briggs test as my preference. Developed by Carl Jung, I’ve found it to be the most accurate indicator of personality traits. I focus on the word ‘indicator’, as the output of these tests should never be used to pigeonhole someone. People have the ability to flex personality traits especially between introversion and extroversion thus creating the ambivert personality type.

I never had a burning desire to become a leader, growing up, I didn’t dream of leading people, and as a community, introverts don’t see themselves as leaders. In some cases they actually doubt they have the ability to lead. Yet Adam Grant’s research has taught us that introverts make better leaders in environments where you have proactive people. If the people are already engaged, introverts are more likely to listen to their ideas and give them the autonomy to use their skills to solve problems. Introverts often fall, or are nominated into leadership roles, usually due to their passion for what they do, or believe in, rather than a desire to become a leader for promotional reasons. You only need to look at Martin Luther King’s story, an introvert who delivered one of the most powerful speeches in history. However, Martin Luther King was actually apprehensive about leading the civil rights movement. Upon forming the Montgomery Improvement Association one of the attendees nominated Martin Luther King for presidency, however King stated “It had happened so quickly that i did not even have time to think it through. It is probable that if I had, I would have declined the nomination”. Ahead of speaking at these meetings he said “I become possessed by fear.” Some time later he would overcome that trepidation, and his thundering voice, built upon his authenticity and passion would united a country around a powerful vision of freedom.

“It had happened so quickly that i did not even have time to think it through. It is probable that if I had, I would have declined the nomination”. — M L King

In modern day workplaces there is a huge pool of talented introverted people being forced to conform to an extroverted culture. It’s not because that culture is explicit or even implicit. And it is not just introverts being stifled in these environments. Studies show that in an open plan office our cognitive load is impacted negatively by the subconscious expectation that we will inevitably be interrupted at our desk, preventing focused productivity.

In my workplace I’ve been told that to progress in my career I need to self promote, create my own brand and speak up more in meetings and conferences. It was more evidence that I was misunderstood and the company was geared towards rewarding extroverted traits. There is a quote I love which illustrates my view on this debate of self promotion;

“When those not used to speaking are heard by those that aren’t used to listening, real change can happen.” — Baroness Fritchie

Following this feedback I wanted to experiment with the idea of giving the introverts a different medium to have a voice and then evaluating the results. I decided to launch a small pilot across the digital teams, I introduced a crowdsourced idea platform. I started by posting real business problems and openly asking for feedback and ideas on how we could solve these problems. The platform used gamification, such as leaderboards and kudos for great ideas and feedback. The results did not surprise me, the introverts flourished. It was because they could reflect and post their comments in what they deemed a safe environment. However, what delighted me most was that these people, who were traditionally overlooked because they didn’t speak up at meetings frequently or ask questions in front of a large audience were now uncovered. It was the value of their contributions that alerted the attention of hiring managers, who would have previously been unaware of this untapped talent pool. I felt vindicated by the results and had renewed hope that my company’s culture may change. Some time later, it hasn’t.

Personally, I feel a sense of relief that I’ve been on this journey of self discovery and have been able to step back and observe what is going on around me (Chaos) and make positive changes. I’ve learned to adapt to the workplace, whether it’s the sanctuary of the invisible cubicle I create simply by plugging in my earphones to listen to calming music or if it’s remote working on days I need to recharge my battery (introverts out there will know what I mean by that), I’ve found the best way to maximise my creativity and productivity. I hope that companies start to make powerful, positive changes to ensure their workplaces truly cater for all types of people, with both quiet and collaborative spaces. Most importantly, the culture in these companies has to change, they need to make a conscious decision to move away from the social norms and find ways to create an environment where everyone can flourish.

For all the quiet ones out there. My views are my own.