Introverts, extroverts and leadership

Building a leadership team that works

An introvert in action

Riding up in the lift to a meeting of retailers, I bumped into the CEO of one of the very biggest chains in the UK - someone who employs tens of thousands of people. We said hello, made small talk and went into our meeting. We were early, and people were mingling over coffee but I noticed a few minutes later that the CEO I’d come in with had gone straight over to a distant meeting table, opened his laptop and was clearly doing whatever he could to avoid the social chit-chat the rest of us were engaged in. I felt a certain kinship with him - here in the wild I’d discovered a fellow introvert.

(As someone who is strongly introverted myself, I used to tell friends how much I disliked the social evening that often follows a management conference, despite how much I loved the conference itself. My introversion was trumped, however, by a former colleague who revealed that his standard practice was to attend the first half hour of the party, sneak off back to his room for a nap, and set an alarm so he could go back for the last half hour and give the impression he’d been there throughout!)

The best practical definition I’ve heard of the difference between introverts and extroverts is that it’s not that introverts don’t like being with people and extroverts do. Instead, the difference is that for introverts, the act of socialising with people drains their energy, which later needs recharging, whilst for extroverts socialising with people is the source of their energy. An introvert may enjoy social contact and seek it out, but they will need some alone-time afterwards, just as an extrovert may well be quite comfortable with a period working on their own but will need a night out with friends to restore their balance.

That rings true for me, and goes a long way to explaining why so many senior business leaders are introverted. They may have come up through the ranks valued for their analytical skills and insight and whilst by definition they are not people who seek out big social gatherings they will nonetheless be people who interact well with others, enjoy meetings and negotiations and other social contact. Very few people succeed in business if they are complete loners.

Indeed, the fact that introverts often enjoy some social contact goes some way to explaining the apparently surprising observation that many of them are excellent public speakers and enjoy the act. In a way, public speaking is the ideal social activity for the introvert, involving as it does an emotional connection with a crowd but one tempered by the distance the stage offers.

There are, though, disadvantages to being an introverted leader. Business is often done by making connections - having strong relationships with suppliers, partner organisations and others in your industry. If your natural inclination is to shy away from the social then you are in danger of under-investing in building those relationships.

Similarly, leadership is often the act of projecting confidence and positivity to a large group of colleagues, and the leader who is happy wandering from group to group at the annual staff conference will find that easier than the one who pretends to take an urgent phone call in the foyer in order to avoid that.

As ever in leadership topics, then, it turns out that the answer to building a strong team running a business involves two things - balance, and openness:

• Balance in the sense of having a mix of both introverts and extroverts in the team

• And openness in the sense that the team will be all the stronger if they’ve had some kind of discussion amongst themselves about where they are on the introvert-extrovert spectrum and how therefore they can support each other.

And that support can make a huge difference to your business. Many a retail business, for example, has benefited greatly from a store leader who is outgoing, gregarious, interested in people and a strong communicator. But the risk for such a person is that they don’t allow enough space for introspection, for detailed analytical processing and that they struggle in tougher business climates because they are brought down by the fears and concerns of the people around them.

Balancing that external energy and engagement with some of the more measured and calmer energies of the introvert can therefore be a big benefit to the business, even that if that person would rather hide behind their laptop than engage in small talk!

I’ve seen management teams too dominated by introverts - I recall one which repeatedly cancelled the annual sales conference on the pretext that the cost was too high or the timing not quite right but where it was obvious from the outside that they just didn’t really want to do it.

Equally, I’ve seen businesses where the extrovert-energy was over the top, with leadership teams engaging in ever more outlandish stunts to be seen as ‘one of the team’ (karaoke on stage at the management conference, anyone?) but with the result that valuable but less gregarious colleagues would run a mile rather than work there.

If you can create an environment where the introverts and extroverts can both play valuable roles in your leadership team, you will be a long way to building the strong team you need in today’s tough market.