The Introverted Leader

Is hybrid working an opportunity for a cultural shift in business?

Corporate politics and self-promotion are ignored at the cost of your reputation. However painful this might feel to an inwardly-oriented professional, being a straight talking, competent and inclusive manager - adapting to tasks with a coaching style, delegating important tasks and encouraging a growth mindset - can contribute to collective success, but only if the culture allows for it.

Typically in the IT industry there are many senior analysts and line managers looking to ascend to senior roles but not receiving due recognition due to introverted personalities. Some may consider themselves to be ‘quiet’ or ‘techie’, while others may explicitly identify as introverted. However, the majority would claim to know their stuff and would speak up when necessary, and all would typically avoid dressing up the truth or overstating their abilities or contribution.  

An introvert thinks, then speaks, then thinks; an extrovert will speak, then think, then speak.'  John Morrish; ‘The Rise of the Introvert’ (2012).

If the speaking, not the thinking, is what bosses notice, the extrovert always wins, despite being much less reflective than their deeper-thinking introverted peers. The culture in some corporations encourages senior executives to rise to C-level thanks more to vigorous self-promotion (sometimes including the appropriation of successes from peers and subordinates) than a fair assessment of abilities.

This is one way in which introverts and extroverts conflict: a manager might delegate a task to a direct report and encouraged and coached them to present back to senior stakeholders (thereby allowing credit to be fairly apportioned, and also providing a growth opportunity and exposure to senior management). That manager is vulnerable to being challenged by the senior management to explain what value they added to the process. The assumption often pervades that senior managers need to demonstrate their ownership of all their teams' output by being the one who delivers the message and establishing their ownership, and this comes at the cost of transparency and credit to the individual contributor. 

A culture that rewards self-promotion and competitive management is more likely to cause anxiety and will lack the authenticity most senior leaders espouse as a virtue. By incentivising the pursuit of goals staked on an individual’s self interest, a negative work environment which hinders cooperation and can lessen productivity can easily form. The combination of hierarchical allegiances and a low degree of empathy cultivates manipulative behaviour, where workers become channeled and silos form under managers. This can encourage excessively competitive or even unethical behaviour, including bullying.

However, accepting that a senior leader needs to ‘broadcast’ their worth, as well as deliver through their teams, how do we consistently and ethically satisfy the needs of our teams and senior management? And how does an introvert turn up the volume on their consistent and collaborative style so as to be heard over the noise of other more extroverted managers constantly broadcasting their existence?

A culture that fosters emotional intelligence will better enable managers to perform their roles secure in the knowledge that they are free to operate according to their own skills and abilities without the need to participate in theatrical behaviour or mimicking their senior managers' styles.

I'm interested in discussing examples of corporates successfully run by introverts (a fact they likely don’t broadcast), and similarly whether there are also great corporate cultures driven by high profile extroverts, as well as how has the corporate culture shifted since the outbreak of COVID-19. It seems to me that 2020's enforced remote working, and the growing collective focus on wellbeing, has shifted corporate cultures in a way that favours introverted team members and gives them more space in which to shine.

'There is zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.' (Susan Cain)

There are several reasons why introverts can be strong leaders and an asset to any team, says Rhett Power, executive coach and author of The Entrepreneur’s Book of Actions. These include:

• Introverts have high levels of concentration and planning, which means their ideas are well thought-out.

• Introverts can observe different points of view and serve as an objective party.

• Introverts don’t push themselves forward without thinking about the risks and work involved. This makes them more realistic in their planning and execution.

“A quiet employee is not necessarily a disengaged employee,” explains Professor Karl Moore, author of Effectively Working with Millennials. “They might be processing some information that was just given to them or thinking about something, but they could be one of the more engaged members of your team.”