Introvert as a Leader

Introvert ‘in power’ - mission`s impossible. Or not?

Imagine the situation. You were hired by one of the leading business companies. Before starting this new job, you have to visit a corporate event on the weekend, where all your future colleagues would be present as well as your supervisor. It is an excellent opportunity to meet people, who would be cooperating with you during the next few years, isn`t it?


Shortly after arriving, your employer introduced you two co-workers, one after another. You were fascinated by the conversation with the first person. He was amiable, cheerful, sociable and extremely easy-going. It seemed that he was full of energy, decisiveness and enthusiastic to act at the very same moment. Perhaps, you felt a desire to become his friend, even though you were acquainted only for a couple of minutes. Whereas the second person was completely different from the first one. Interacting with him, you felt uncomfortable; it was hard to find a theme to communicate and the conversation was over shortly after its beginning. All in all, you were under the impression that this man was secretive, timid and ill-disposed. Moreover, he seemed to be apathetic and showed no interest in any further participation.

The thing is that one of these two people was your head, the person, who would manage collective projects, the one, who you would be obliged to cooperate with during your staying in that position. If you had a chance to decide who would become your boss, what wold be the choice? There is no doubt, that the majority of people would choose the first one. It is obvious, because in what way, the person concerned in his inner world and that looks as if he was annoyed with people could be a first-rate leader, mentor or simply succeed in something?

Still, what is the cause for such a preference? The first colleague is extrovert, according to his phycological type, while the second one is introvert personality. It is not a secret that we live in the extroverted society. That is because approximately 75 % of the entire population are extroverts, in other words, every 3 in 4 people. Consequently, introverts are forced to except their ‘rules of habitation’.

Therefore, it is not a surprise, that features of character, which are considered to be necessary for leadership and are the key to success, mainly are intrinsic to extroverted people. They are, for instance, confidence, the capability to influence on other people, excellent communicative skills, decisiveness and ability to adaptation. Of course, it is not a full list, but only a few characteristics of a successful businessman, administrator or anyone, who wants to prosper in doing something.

According to such stereotyped thinking, introverts are unable to supervise. However, it is a definitely false assumption. What is more, frequently they are better leaders, in comparison to extroverts.It could be explained by the fact, that nowadays everything is changing rapidly. Requirements to people in charge at our time are much different from those, which were even 50 years ago. Among them, we could see more and more features owned by introverted personality type.

First of all, it is an ability to analyze. Introverts are tended to reflection much more, than extroverts. As a result, they could predict all possible outcomes of a situation, foresee errors and make a decision, which is right at the end.

The next, mainly introverted features, are independence and individualism. In our era of the mass media and the Internet, uniqueness is extremely valuable. That is why, you need to stand out of the crowd, to have your own original view on things and affairs if you want to achieve goals, which you put upon yourself.

The other essential leadership quality is diplomatic skills. It is nobody else, but introverts, who are absolutely non-conflict people. They always try to reach a compromise, as well as to make both sides feel delighted at the deal. The art of agreement is vital during any kind of negotiations.

A few more reasons why introverts are much better leaders than extroverts are: they are more likely to listen and pay attention to what other people saying; introverted people are more reliable and responsible; they lie less, than outgoing people and never make empty promises.

Nevertheless, it is a huge challenge to introverts not only to be in charge of a company but simply interact with people and share their ideas and thoughts. For that reason and because extroverts are better promoters of themselves, it is uncommon for an introverted person to play leading role at something.

Considering all above, an introvert could be an extremely effective leader at anything if only give him a chance.