Quiet leadership: Shining the light on introverted team members

How to nurture your introverted team members to become great leaders

Amina Islam

In 1979, two Steve’s revolutionized the tech industry when their product — the Apple II — was released as the world’s first consumer computer designed for amateurs rather than hobbyists and engineers. It came pre-assembled and “ready-to-run” straight out of the box, and the computing world was never the same again. Even though it was the quiet Wozniak who contributed most of the programming brilliance in the early Apple years, Jobs was the household name who took the product global with his showman persona.

Let’s do a thought experiment; if the two Steve’s held entry-level positions at a typical organization, who would make it faster to the top — the introverted Wozniak or the extroverted Jobs?

In her 2012 book, “Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that cant stop talking,” Susan Cain shone the light on how society has a tendency to celebrate extroverted leaders and overlook introverted ones despite the latter making up an estimated 25 to 40 percent of the population.

As a leader, you probably know it is important to embrace all personality types in the workplace, yet due to cultural bias, it is very easy to overlook the strengths that introverted employees can bring to the table. Thus, there is a need to make ourselves aware of the differences between introverts and extroverts, help them embrace who they are, and leverage their traits and qualities to support them so they can emerge as stronger leaders.

First, let’s understand the source of this cultural bias- why don’t introverts emerge as leaders more often?

Extroverts draw their energy from being around people, so they usually have a greater ability to pull them together through their communication skills. Introverts, on the other hand, draw their energy from being alone, are often stereotyped as being shy, and are consequently less likely to end up in the spotlight.

The general assumption that introverts don’t like people and are shy or anti-social, is not true. Where one stands on the introversion/extroversion spectrum is a matter of where they lose and gain energy from; other people or themselves. To understand why introverts require solitary time to recharge, a research looks at the difference between the network of neurons called Reticular Activating System (RAS) of introverts and extroverts. The RAS plays a role in controlling how much information you take in while you’re awake. When a person is faced with potential threats, the RAS is stimulated for you to be alert. Everyone has a basic set point, but for introverts, it’s higher by nature, meaning they are usually more alert, take in more information, but also can become overstimulated, thus requiring more time in solitude to regain their energy.

In turn, this allows extroverts to gain more visibility in career advancement and unfortunately this bias also advances the myth that introverts can’t make great leaders. In line with this, a Harvard Business Review research cites how 65% of senior corporate executives view introversion as a barrier to leadership. Notwithstanding, this myth is untrue and there are countless examples of accomplished introverted leaders who have changed the world. They include Rosa Parks, Bill Gates, and Abraham Lincoln, to name a few.

Here are some of the qualities introverts have in common, which in fact are strengths they can leverage to be great leaders:

Introverts tend to be good listeners: Because of their reflective nature, introverts are more likely to pay attention to what others say, which is in line with what psychologist and author of the best-selling book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman defines as the “coaching leader.”:

“An effective coaching leader listens one-on-one to employees, establishes personal rapport and trust, and helps employees work out for themselves how their performance matters and where they can find additional information and resources…Coaching leadership fires up and accelerates innovation and learning at all levels of the organization.”

The idea of how this quality can help an introvert in leadership is further reaffirmed by studies conducted by organizational psychologist Adam Grant, who wrote,

“…introverts are often more effective leaders — particularly when workers are proactive, offering ideas for improving the business. Such behavior can make extroverted leaders feel threatened. In contrast, introverted leaders tend to listen more carefully and show greater receptivity to suggestions, making them more effective leaders of vocal teams.”

Introverts dig deep into a problem: Because introverts draw their energy from within, they are more likely to have deliberate thought processes and higher concentration powers when faced with a problem. The caveat here is that it could be seen as a disadvantage when tasks take longer for them to process especially in fast-paced work environments that require people to make snap decisions. As a leader, you’ll need to understand the extra time and solitude that introverts need to process information and allow for that. An example would be, rather than expect introverts to come up with solutions the moment they are presented with a problem during a meeting, give them some leeway in terms of time and solitude to go and think about it. This helps draw the best out of their nature.

Introverts have the potential to emerge as great leaders but their path is different because they’re more likely to be quieter and not toot their own horn.

Your challenge as a leader is not to force introverts to wear an extrovert’s mask all the time- which is pretty exhausting and unsustainable — but to provide them with the right situations where their qualities can shine, giving them more confidence about their leadership capability.

In other words, it’s important to nurture the Wozniaks to get the best out of your team!

About the author: Amina Islam is the Innovative Learning Lead for Xcelerator , where she works with the product team to develop new programs. She received her Ph.D. from Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in 2017. Amina is always excited about new ideas and explores them in writing on her Linkedin profile and ahscribbles.com.