Why don’t introverts emerge as leaders?

introverts as leaders

It’s no surprise that introverts can make great leaders. There are quite a few references about great introverted leaders from politicians like Barack Obama, film directors, human rights activists or even influencers (as we collect in our list of famous introverts). But then why don’t we see job offers where introverted executives are in demand?

This may be because the term introversion is tainted by words like shy, anxious, or stressed about change. While you can be introverted and shy, there are also extroverts and shy.

Introversion and extroversion are personality traits of a person that are determined by nature, although some people will become more or less introverted depending on factors in their environment. When we talk about introverted people, we generally refer to individuals who enjoy their own company for long periods of time, reflect before speaking, are more reserved and do not usually get bored if they are alone.

However, in today’s article I would like to turn the tables and not blame the job offers that extrovert managers ask for, but rather hold ourselves, the introverts, responsible: are we running away from positions where we have to show leadership? Do we prefer not to have to be responsible to a large team of people?

What is the relationship between professional success and personality?

In research published in Science Direct, “Introverts’ Failure as Leaders and the Anticipation Effect” examined behavioral traits in 184 business students. First, each student’s introvert-extrovert spectrum was measured by a personality test and then each student was asked to predict what emotion she would experience (happy, upset) in a leadership role. Next, each student had to act as a leader before a small group of people and her behavior was observed.

The following findings were obtained from the experiment:

  • Introverts were worried and had higher levels of stress in leadership situations.
  • They are less likely to emerge informally as leaders in informal groups.
  • The study found that extroverts are more likely than introverts to perform well in sales and public-facing jobs (no surprise there).
  • Introverts are less likely to formally emerge as leaders in organizations through the usual channels of promotion and selection.
  • Introverts, on the other hand, are more likely to be humble and less likely to risk our own health and safety.
  • Even before experiencing being a leader of a group, introverts predicted they would have negative emotions, they sabotage themselves by not even bidding for a position where they have leadership responsibilities.

You might not feel very motivated after reading all this, but bear with me there is still more to extract from this study.

Why don’t introverts emerge as leaders?

We found that the fact that introverts think they will be uncomfortable in a leadership position plays a big role in explaining why introverts resist emerging as leaders. When participants thought they would experience negative emotions (ie, fear, worry, or distress), these became strong psychological barriers to acting as a leader. Introverts were more likely to think they would feel these negative emotions than extraverts.

What does science say about introverted leaders?

Just because introverts don’t expect themselves to handle leadership roles doesn’t mean they can’t be successful leaders.

Until recently, the popular scientific opinion was that extroverts generally perform better as leaders than introverts. Extroverts have a set of characteristics that make them seem like leaders, and these characteristics also encourage certain effective leadership styles (for example, being charismatic and inspiring). This also makes sense intuitively, as extroverts are dominant, confident, persuasive, and expressive, and therefore should make better leaders.

However, recently this idea has been challenged and there is a growing appreciation of the introverted personality. In her best-selling book Quiet by Ella, author Susan Cain focuses on the many strengths of introverts, many of which should help people in leadership positions, such as deep listening and deep thinking.

Various studies have also identified leadership situations in which introverts tend to outperform extroverts. One study, for example, reported that introverts are more effective proactive team leaders than extroverts. Another study found that introverted characteristics are prevalent in effective leaders. These leaders are people who encourage the good performance of others by focusing on the growth and well-being of their teams.

It might be possible to change mindsets among introverts about their ability to be leaders. Other research also indicates that introverts are as capable of engaging in “extraverted” behaviors as enjoying them when forced to do so.

The term “anticipatory extraversion” indicates that introverts tend to overestimate the negative emotions they’ll experience when acting extroverted. Personally it happens to me every day, when my co-workers invite me to any plan at first I get “lazy”. I think about the bad moments that this event will entail and I underestimate the good ones (the funny thing is that most of the times that I accept the invitation I have a great time). In other words, I actually end up overestimating the energy that this event will entail.

How can we be good introverted leaders?

As we have seen, introverted people naturally have qualities that will be welcome in a position as a leader, the problem is that we have in our head an ideal of an extrovert manager that makes us doubt ourselves.

And as the study shows, there are many characteristics of extroverts that are very favorable for a leadership position, charisma, people skills, spontaneity, among others, but all these qualities can also be learned. We will not focus on wanting to be extroverted, but on extracting those traits associated with extroverts and incorporating them into our toolbox.

If introverts can be taught to be more confident or optimistic about leadership situations, it seems very likely that they can emerge as leaders just as often as extroverts.

So the challenge is not to make introverts more like extroverts, but to help introverts become more confident in their own leadership abilities.

Have you ever rejected any leadership position because of your introverted personality? 🤔🙄 ​​I´ll see you in the comments!

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