Why Introverts Can Make The Best Leaders
forbes.com
forbes.com
Listening is simply a conversational skill and has nothing to do with meyers-briggs personality type. Some people are naturally better at listening and others aren't. Some people practice and gain skill others do not.
There are a number of circumstances under which people fail to listen. Two common ones are:
1. One's own speech fills in the entire time leaving no one else a chance to talk.
2. One's listening time is wasted mentally preparing what you are going to say and anticipating an opportunity to say it. So others talk, but you aren't paying attention.
(1) would be a problem associated with "extraverts" while (2) would be a problem associated with "introverts." But in fact, if you really got someone to observe your behavior you might be surprised to find how often you are guilty of the first. The introvert/extravert labels are somewhat dangerous models to apply to your own behavior.
I don't really know what studies there are on this, but the belief that introverts are better listeners is widespread (just google on "introverts better listeners" -- compare that to "extroverts better listeners").
But what does introvert really mean? There's a vague understanding that it's a kind of person who "directs energy inward to the mind as opposed to outward to the environment."
Lots of programmers spend a lot of time programming, which is a solitary activity, so they all think "they are introverts." Just like all these other people who "are introverts." It's very comforting. But it's lazy.
Most people express both kinds of behavior, and are quite capable of thinking in different ways. People who become Buddhist monks don't have to be "introverted people" but they practice what would be described as introverted behavior. Do they "become introverts" via training? Someone who has spent most of their life programming can learn to direct energy outward playing soccer. They can learn to experience the thrill of improvising a story to a crowd, making it bits as you go based on how you want them to feel about it.
The general assumptions are way too broad. "uncomfortable in social situations" - Why? Low self-esteem? Maybe it's as simple as bad posture. You are slouching and don't realize it, this means you have to make a lot of effort to use your voice. This makes you reluctant to talk and when you do, your voice is soft and sounds a bit strained and uncomfortable. It's hard for people to hear you and they don't enjoy listening, so they have to ask you to repeat yourself, you get frustrated and feel embarassed. So you go home and say "I don't like social situations." "I must be an introvert." When really you just need to practice standing up straight and breathing properly.
It could be hundreds of different things depending on the person, and giving yourself a broad label like "introvert" and "extravert" only interferes with your ability to understand those things.
... the most powerful person in the room is often the most quiet
Another problem is that extroverts sometimes take credit for the "thoughts" of introverts (those that have been written before spoken).
But the title and point of the article are simply why introverts can make good leaders, not necessarily why extroverts aren't just as good.
If I read his comment wrong, then so be it.
EDIT: after reading my initial comment, I realized that it might have sounded a bit "pro-extrovert" which wasn't my intent. I've edited it to be a bit more clear.
But the article still serves its purpose. In the business world, there's a tendency to assume you must be extroverted to be a great leader. There's an assumption that introverts should be doing other things like engineering, that introverts don't have the "people skills" necessary to be great leaders. The article makes a good case that this just isn't so.
but you can use it forever.
What's perfectly full seems empty,
but you can't use it up.
True straightness looks crooked.
Great skill looks clumsy.
Real eloquence seems to stammer.
To be comfortable in the cold, keep moving;
to be comfortable in the heat, keep still;
to be comfortable in the world, stay calm and clear.
-- Tao Te Ching
I've noticed that this is my greatest strength as an introvert. I tend to not say that much in meetings, but when I do, people listen. It's gotten to the point where I rarely have to talk over people.
To say the very least that could possibly be said, I think there is zero of the envisaged correlation here.
Bill Gates's introvertness and leadership of driving the technical direction of Microsoft, while Steve Ballmer's extrovertness of being the sales guy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENTJ
where the e is for extraversion.
However, the Wikipedia definition sounds more like a description of egoist/altruist:
Introversion is "the state of or tendency toward being wholly or predominantly concerned with and interested in one's own mental life".
Extraversion is "the act, state, or habit of being predominantly concerned with and obtaining gratification from what is outside the self"
This separates a person's interpersonal skills from their intro- or extro-vertedness.
This definition is useful for me because I'm pretty outgoing in "party" situations, but eventually need to spend alone time, recharging, I guess. On the other hand, I have friends who hate to be alone.
In terms of a test, the MBTI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator) is pretty good IMO.
"Do you enjoy being the center of attention?"
Since everyone shares traits of introverts and extraverts, it's easy to take a test and read the vague description they give you and think "oh yeah that sounds like me."
You can show that an animal was missclassified as an invertebrate by showing the flaws in the test that failed to identify the spinal cord that exists. If you disagree with your MBTI label, you can just take the test again and answer the questions differently, at which point your label changes. Or does it? Nobody knows, because MBTI is a game masquerading as science.
When zoologists label something 'frog' or 'mouse', they observe specific traits that differentiate the mice from frogs and group them into categories. The specific observable traits and the definition of the species are essentially the same thing. It's possible to discover an animal with traits that correspond neither to frog, or to mouse. It's possible (though obviously unlikely because our skills at observing and describing physical traits in animals are far superior to our skills at observing complex patterns in our own behavior) for a test to mis-classify a frog as a mouse, and that a subsequent test will show the flaws of the original test.
MBTI doesn't do that. MBTI tests assign unspecific predefined labels to test-takers, and that's why I say it is not science. There is no real discovery.
Disagreeing with your MBTI label doesn't mean you can take the test again and answer questions differently - if you can honestly answer a question in a different way, you fall on the spectrum between things.
What many people miss is that the labels are merely points on a spectrum, each of the four factors is given a percentage rating showing how strongly that factor applies (70% E, for example, implies 30% I - you're more extraverted than introverted, but still have that introversion in your personality).
I'm not saying MBTI is 'science', as there's no way to scientifically prove personality traits, but your specific argument against it is flawed.
Actually I must contradict that assertion. It is theoretically possible to observe cellular life that is not adequately described by those three labels. It is highly improbable because the descriptions are the result of thousands of man-years of study, and covers everything we've been able to discover so far. But because the definitions are strict and based on empirical observations, it can be done.
In fact, Achaea is a relatively new sub-category of Prokaryote, because the increasing number of empirical observations stretched the limits of the existing definitions. Scientists found life that failed the Eukaryote test, nominally passed the Prokaryote test, but were really sufficiently different from other Prokaryotes such that a new term was assigned. This is because real effort was made to make the definition of Prokaryote strict and precise based on empirical observations. That leaves open the possibility that unexpected observations (discoveries) will challenge the usefulness of existing definitions. That won't ever happen with MBTI. You can never take a Meyers-Briggs test and have the test fail to categorize. Every test gives you an answer, a personality type that reads like a horoscope. The types are not strict and precise like the definitions of cellular life, they are vague and inclusive like your horoscope. You don't read it and think "interesting new knowledge!" you read it and think "this is so true! This is me!"
Consider the human conditions that MBTI fails to identify. It cannot identify a psychopath. It cannot identify a schizofrenia. It cannot identify alzheimers disease, or any sort of mental illness even due to physical damage to the brain. It cannot, technically even determine whether the subject is human (although that could be a reasonable assumption). If this methodology can not and will not ever be able to distinguish between recognized psychiatric diseases, is it really reasonable to expect that it can differentiate subtle personality traits based on the results of a questionaire? Is it really telling you anything useful about yourself? You could have a serious, potentially dangerous mental condition like bipolar disorder and all the MBTI will tell you is that you "enjoy being with people."
Incidentally whether it's a spectrum or not doesn't change the argument at all. A person who scores 50%/50% introvert/extrovert is not a discovery. The test fully accounts for this.
"[introverts]...tend to think before talking, whereas extroverts tend to think by talking, which is why their meetings never last less than six hours."
I can definitely be pretty active at parties and stuff, but this is something that I've learned to do as I realized how being my "natural" self turns people off. I guess you can say that my social stamina is low and I need to rest more than extroverts do.
For instance, an egoist introvert would likely spend all day thinking about how good they are to themselves. An egoist extravert would spend all day telling everyone else how good they are.
Also instead to do useless work because you can't just tell in five seconds if this is going to be OK sucks. A lot of wasted work. I think that the ability to communicate well is very important IMHO, and it's unrelated to being introverts or extroverts as far as I can tell.
But, whatever the reason is for some kind of guy to talk too little, it's a huge problem at work.