{"id":314,"date":"2011-10-27T19:57:17","date_gmt":"2011-10-28T00:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/?p=314"},"modified":"2011-10-27T19:57:33","modified_gmt":"2011-10-28T00:57:33","slug":"can-an-introvert-become-a-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/2011\/10\/can-an-introvert-become-a-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Can an introvert become a leader?&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>Unquestionably the answer is &#8220;Yes!&#8221;<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Last year CNN published an article entitled &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2010\/BUSINESS\/11\/29\/introverts.leadership\/\" target=\"_blank\">Why introverts can be great leaders<\/a>.&#8221; It offers up some solid research that backs up the article title and is worth the read.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I recently interviewed Jim Kouzes<\/strong> who is the co-author of classic leadership books such as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0787984922\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=instituteforl-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399369&amp;creativeASIN=0787984922\" target=\"_blank\">The Leadership Challenge<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/CredibilityBook\" target=\"_blank\">Credibility<\/a> (interviews are available for free at <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/CredibilityPart1\">http:\/\/bit.ly\/CredibilityPart1<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/CredibilityPart2\">http:\/\/bit.ly\/CredibilityPart2<\/a>). In both books they present extensive research into what it takes to be an effective leader, including what followers want from their leaders.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So, what do followers want?<\/strong> The top 4 include a leader who is:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Honest<\/li>\n<li>Forward-thinking<\/li>\n<li>Inspiring<\/li>\n<li>Competent<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>(Side note: it struck me that those are four qualities we don&#8217;t normally associate with politicians these days! But I digress&#8230;.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In that list, <em><strong>Inspiring<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0might be the closest associated with extroversion. I asked Jim about that in the interview and he insisted that it does not require\u00a0one to be\u00a0extroverted. Granted, it&#8217;s difficult to inspire if you never leave your desk or spend time with people. But thinking that one must be\u00a0extroverted to be\u00a0inspiring exposes a myth about what we believe to be true about introverts.<\/p>\n<p><strong>One of my favorite interviews related to introversion was with Devora Zack<\/strong>, author of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1605095222\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=instituteforl-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399369&amp;creativeASIN=1605095222\" target=\"_blank\">Networking for People Who Hate Networking<\/a> (see <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/DevoraZackCast\">http:\/\/bit.ly\/DevoraZackCast<\/a> for the discussion). I highly recommend the book for anyone who considers themselves an introvert and wants to grow in their ability to build relationships.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I&#8217;m currently preparing for an interview with Rob Cross<\/strong>, author of multiple books including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1591392705\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=instituteforl-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399369&amp;creativeASIN=1591392705\" target=\"_blank\">The Hidden Power of Social Networks: Understanding How Work Really Gets Done in Organizations<\/a>. Earlier this year he co-authored a piece for HBR\u00a0on &#8220;A Smarter Way to Network.&#8221; There&#8217;s an insightful HBR audio interview available at <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/ideacast\/2011\/07\/getting-networking-right.html\">http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/ideacast\/2011\/07\/getting-networking-right.html<\/a>. Rob&#8217;s research over 15 years shows that one&#8217;s success doesn&#8217;t come down to &#8220;She with the most relationships wins!&#8221; Rather, a more important factor is &#8220;bridging relationships&#8221;, those connections that bridge levels up, across, down, and outside the organization. Introverts can certainly build such relationships without worrying about quantity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Further, Rob presents an intriguing finding<\/strong>. Success was even more impacted\u00a0by the degree to which a person tends to energize those around them. This doesn&#8217;t have to be\u00a0energizing in an extroversion sense, as in being a high-key cheerleader. Bob Sutton says it this way in his book <a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/pLeobK\" target=\"_blank\">Good Boss, Bad Boss<\/a>. <em>A key difference between a good boss and a bad boss is how you feel after you interact with them. Did they energize you or drain you?<\/em> I can think of extroverts and introverts who land on both side of Sutton&#8217;s assertion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Interestingly, Rob has found that &#8220;energizers&#8221; tend to pull (or attract): opportunities, talent, information for decisions, etc<\/strong>. De-energizers tend to repel those same things, which ultimately impacts one&#8217;s ability to lead and succeed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>As with most things in life, our ability to successfully lead\u00a0isn&#8217;t as simple as one factor such as personality type<\/strong>\u00a0(though how we&#8217;re wired can both give us a head start as well as hinder us). If I had to personally boil it down to\u00a0one factor\u00a0based on my experience coaching hundreds of executives it comes down to what Justin Menkes mentions in his book, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1422138704\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=instituteforl-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399373&amp;creativeASIN=1422138704\" target=\"_blank\">Better Under Pressure<\/a>: an individual&#8217;s sense of agency. In other words, if someone has a teachable spirit, a hunger and willingness to learn, and a sense that they have the ability to take action (as opposed to being a victim), they have great potential to lead others.<\/p>\n<p><strong>That has nothing to do with introversion or extroversion and much more about how they see themselves and their world.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Indeed, introverts can make great leaders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unquestionably the answer is &#8220;Yes!&#8221; Last year CNN published an article entitled &#8220;Why introverts can be great leaders.&#8221; It offers up some solid research that backs up the article title and is worth the read. I recently interviewed Jim Kouzes who is the co-author of classic leadership books such as The Leadership Challenge and Credibility&#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/2011\/10\/can-an-introvert-become-a-leader\/#more-314\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[119,94,109,95],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p488Wj-54","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":316,"href":"http:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions\/316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}