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Introverts can make great leaders (2018)
- k__ 5y agoI always ask myself how high the number of people is that are in leadership position just because of their charisma.
- hyko 5y agoA lot? Very hard to be a great leader without it, so it inevitably comes with a large halo effect.
- alexpetralia 5y agoIt is for the most part a necessary but not sufficient condition.
- tolbish 5y agoI don't think that's true. Lisa Su is a fantastic CEO but doesn't strike me as incredibly charismatic. That said, maybe it's a good thing...I'm not sure if semiconductors is the best industry for extroverts.
- varispeed 5y agoMore likely because they have money and people who work for them don't. "Charisma" comes from projecting power - some people are backed up by money which gives them required confidence and other people can fake the feeling of having such backup. It comes down how great safety net given person has. If they know they can do anything, and they can pay their way even out of murder, then they will have the so called "charisma".
- roenxi 5y agoIt lists Sergey Brin as a Yahoo co-counder. I question their research. And most people, I think, when they talk about extroverts just mean people who talk a lot. I don't see how anyone could identify an introvert (or an extrovert) from a conversation in a business setting. Promotions in business are all about politics. Politics can happen with a couple of well placed whispers and a short speech if someone has mastered that game. Effectiveness in business is all about we-don't-quite-know-what, so not much to talk about there.
- SMAAART 5y ago> I don't see how anyone could identify an introvert (or an extrovert) from a conversation in a business setting. Given a long enough conversation, I can most of the time. Let's also keep in mind the true meaning of Introverts (and extraverts) https://carlkingdom.com/10-myths-about-introverts https://carlkingdom.com/10-myths-about-introverts and not the common misunderstood concepts of shy/anxiety symptoms.
- Graffur 5y agoThanks for posting but the definitions of introvert and extrovert have been abused so much at this stage. The pandemic made it worse. I have heard people claim introverts are happy with lockdowns and don't want to go back to the office.
- sharken 5y agoIf you follow the notion that extroverts talk a lot, then by definition an introvert is the opposite. My own interpretation is that introverts focus on getting things done, which is just a lot easier to do without distractions, e.g. away from the office. Also, for me the #3 trait of a good leader is the most important, you have to display technical and professional expertise. When your work is of a technical nature, it doesn't inspire confidence in your leader if they have no technical knowledge.
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- 8fGTBjZxBcHq 5y agoIf introverts focus on getting things done what do extroverts do in your eyes? Just hang out? There's a book about this called Quiet, I it. It's an overview of the like social history of the concepts of intro- and extroversion, and also research about these traits. The difference seems to be more about stimulation and arousal than like social preferences or anything to do with work. Introverts get more aroused from the same stimulus than extroverts do. This manifests in a bunch of different ways. The social ones are most obvious because human connection is the most common source of intense stimulus in human lives. But for example extroverts are more likely to be "adrenaline junkies" because they need more stimulus to feel the same degree of excitement. This has nothing to do at all with social stuff or talking or "getting things done" it's just a thing. There are dozens or hundreds of correlations like this. The interpersonal and social differences are the most obvious effects, but they aren't at the core of what these things are.
- dd36 5y agoOT the most introverted people I know are also the most near-sighted. It got me to wondering if introversion is a protection in nature for near-sightedness.
- gryn 5y agomore likely the opposite, nearsightedness is related to a lack of exposure of the eye to sunlight during childhood. introverted people are more likely to spend time indoor (away from the UV of sunlight) which lead to your observed correlation.
- JrProgrammer 5y agoDo you have any sources on this?
- sndean 5y agoNot sure about the correlation with being introverted, but the sunlight-nearsightedness correlation is pretty well established [0], specifically light in the near ultraviolet range [1]. There was a really interesting article on HN years ago about this, but I can't find it. The researchers suggested this effect was a good reason to mandate outdoor recess for children during the school day – maybe in Australia? [0] https://insights.osu.edu/health/myopia https://insights.osu.edu/health/myopia [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-3964(17)30020-8/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-39...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dd36 5y agoWhat? None of the near-sighted people in my family spent more than normal time indoors. Likely the opposite. We were always outside.
- fpoling 5y agoI have high myopia and I had plenty of outdoor time in my childhood on par or even higher than my buddies who did not developed myopia. Less anecdotal evidence is prevalence of myopia in south-east Asia where people have more exposure to bright sun than in Europe. My pet hypothesis about myopia is exposure to high glycemic food like white rice or white bread that simulate growth just little bit too much that is enough to develop the eye few microns too big and cause myopia. But that hypothesis also has a lot of issues.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- username90 5y agoMy theory is that extroverts simply rely more on biases to crudely categorise people. Treating people like individuals and learning about each of them is strenuous, which would explain why introverts gets tired from socializing while extroverted people don't.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- amelius 5y agoSo instead of saying introvert/extravert perhaps we should say sincere/insincere?
- username90 5y agoIt just means that they spend less effort getting to know you. So instead of knowing a lot about few people they know a little about many people. It isn't inherently better or worse, just different.
- n4bz0r 5y agoI'd rather suggest refraining from using both terms. Why do people feel the urge to make the distinction in the first place?
- mlac 5y agoExtraverts gain energy from getting to know people. I don’t think they’re lazy or don’t care about people, but they truly get energy from talking and being around others. That’s how they recharge. Introverts expend energy doing the same thing. A happy hour can be exhausting, but enjoyable getting to talk to people. I’m… somewhere in between but operate in the extremes. I can be recharged from a party and being in good company or I can be recharged by staying inside all weekend and being alone. But it’s not like both recharge me all the time, and I haven’t figured out how to predict what will be needed far in the future. My weekend needs depend on my week I guess and how much I have been or will be interacting or traveling. I generally like people though. If I didn’t like people or didn’t want to get to know them, I can’t see how being an extrovert and around people would be a energizing.
- slver 5y agoToday in baseless generalizations...
- spaetzleesser 5y agoVery true. It’s sad that people love to push people into rigid categories that are supposed to explain things.
- xiphias2 5y agoIn the past extroverts had a huge advantage, as building a network of people required going out of the house. With the adoption of internet and the speed of technology, talking to people all the time can be a disadvantage/waste of time compared to just learning from the internet and finding people there.
- petra 5y agoOnline connections are good for something, mostly learning. But offline is much better for creating relationships and trust, and for politics. So most of the advantage is still left for extroverts.
- xiphias2 5y agoSure, politics is still important, but not as crucial as before. Elon Musk spent most of his young life reading technical books in the library and learning programming, while people who get into politics/banking are doing sports and lots of social events / social clubs.
- watwut 5y agoHe is not programmer. He is manager and the he is at most successful when he charms people. His whole thing is making other people do stuff rather then do stuff.
- petra 5y agoI don't think Elon Musk is relevant, if we're talking about regular employees trying to advance their careers.
- xiphias2 5y agoHe is in the article as an example, the article is not about regular employees, but leaders.
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- emmap21 5y agoI agree - at least from my a bag of data points I have. Unfortunately, the common perception is extroverts. This happens when people just read news and consume media without real experience.
- xyzelement 5y agoIntroverts can make good leaders but too often these "introverts are great" articles are pointed to by those who just want an excuse for their poor social skills and lack of impact. Case in point, my last boss was a visible, forceful woman who emphasized relationship building. It took me a year to learn she actually is heavily introverted and spends her weekends not talking to anyone. She was an effective introverted leader but she was also just an effective leader, period. It wouldn't occur to her to share this article. On the other hand, plentny of low impact people believe they have great ideas but they aren't able to articulate them to get any traction or even feedback. Rather than learning how to handle these situations, they chalk up their ineptitude to introversion. That's the kind of people I find takes comfort in these articles.
- NikolaNovak 5y agoDifferent people have wildly different definition of introvert vs extrovert as well. I find that "gets energy from interaction vs lose energy from interaction" is more productive than "shy vs loud". I was visibly shy for first two decades of my life; I look (and am) a "people person" for the last two decades and most recent friends/colleagues wouldn't know I'm an introvert; and I'm doing reasonably well in people-manager role. But whereas after a hard day my sister wants to go out and party and this will rejuvenate her, after a hard day I want... nay, need, some "me time" - alone with book or computer or tv or music to recharge. I'm stereotypically the first person to leave a party of my best friends - I love them, I love our time together, but at some point I had enough input and need to depart. My point is: I think "introvert" is a defining characteristic of me; but "have people skills" is just that - skills. I don't think I'll ever change whether I gain or lose energy from social interactions; that seems a pretty built-in aspect of my personality. But I can and did tremendously change how I actually interact with people - it may come easy to some, harder to others, and seemingly impossible to yet others, but it is in principle a learnable, acquirable skill. So, "6% of Business executives think introverts have people skills needed" makes me think this is an accidentally tautology - I'm pretty sure they mentally have defined "introverts" as "those with poor people skills", and that's not I think the most accurate definition.
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- acosmism 5y agoarticle has sergey as cofounder of yahoo lol
- JesseMReeves 5y agoAngela Merkel and Obama are introverts.. Bolsonaro, Johnson and Donald Trump extroverts. Looking at the past year that's 'nuff said. It seems some countries have a preference for extroverts, and confuse loudness and random action taking with ability. Fooled by charisma – especially Western nations seem to continuously fall into this trap.
- clacx 5y agoMerkel ruined the political landscape in Germany (protest voters going green or far right) and is indirectly and partly responsible for Brexit. Housing prices skyrocket and people are poorer in general. The Corona policy is chaotic and Germany is behind in vaccinations. I'm not sure this is a great record.
- JesseMReeves 5y agoThe word "Merkel" seems to act as a trigger for you. I can assume quite well where you are getting your political information. Wondering how you evaluate the "track record" of the "extrovert" people I mentioned.
- drran 5y agoI bet that «frau Ribentrop» will work for Gasprom, like her patron. Or, maybe, she already does that.
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- 11thEarlOfMar 5y agoIntroverts need to develop a different style of leadership than extroverts. They need their own playing field. I identify as introvert, and I was in a leadership role. My style was to develop the company strategy, then discuss it with a few select executives who I knew to be direct, honest, rational and usually right. Use their input to iterate and refine and then disseminate the strategy to the entire company. I ensured that everyone in the company understood the strategy and understood their role in executing it. I.e., rather than an emotional plea to 'follow me because I'm persuasive', it was 'follow me because you can see the plan and your role in it and if you don't buy in, I am open to hear and assimilate your thinking.' Perhaps a succinct description would be: An Extroverted leader keeps focus on themselves. An Introverted leader keeps the focus on the plan.
- watwut 5y agoWasnt it more of follow me because I am boss basically? You said you had small circle of people you listened to and the rest was informed about plan and their place in it.
- anovikov 5y agoHere is my take: today business is frequently about doing something that brings no benefit to the people at all (just take these 'startups' who exploit nothing but people's gullibility and/or addiction), that should give introverts an edge, because we gradually grow to be ignorant of other people's feelings for our poor ability to read other's emotional reactions in everyday's life. Because of this natural everyday feedback loop being weaker, we are less impacted by conscience, so in the one-sided, cynical online business world of today, we get an edge over others.
- JesseMReeves 5y agoWhat if the introvert vs. extrovert categorization is a concept invented by so-called "extroverts", to pad their egos? It's a concept that places randomly, emotionally acting people on the same level as people who try to think rationally before acting and prefer quietly educating themselves over socializing, as "they are just different personality types". It's a concept putting people that spend all their evenings in bars drinking on the same level as those they perceive as "introvert bookworms". They don't have to admit that the quiet wallflower who doesn't seem to be interested in participating in their primate dominance games is just more intelligent, careful and thoughtful than them. It's thus a quite useful idea for people who don't do a lot of non-social activities. It even gives those "extroverts" an excuse to pathologize and patronize "introverts", just as they do during other social settings. Even the article has a list of "coping" strategies at the end, such as "Balance your time: For every 1-hour meeting, make sure to plan at least 30 minutes to yourself." – as if thinking before speaking makes you mentally ill and require special treatment.
- stingraycharles 5y agoThis seems like a heavily polarizing and flamebatey comment. It’s not an us-against-them thing, and I would even argue that introvert vs extrovert is much less binary than your comment suggests.
- JesseMReeves 5y agoDeeply sorry if I could not make myself clear to you, thanks for showing me with a downvote. What I'm trying to do is dissolve these binary categories and find another explanation for their presence in public discourse.
- tnzm 5y agoI agree with your overall sentiment but it is a polarizing comment and it does not propose an alternative. If the group with worse values is better at normalizing their values, no progress is made.
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- spaetzleesser 5y agoTwo thoughts: * Let’s not confuse “introvert” with “shy” or “socially awkward”. There are plenty of introverts that can turn it on when needed. It may not be their favorite thing but they can do it and often pretty well. These people will have no problem in leadership. And there are others that are either too shy or socially awkward that won’t do well. * In the end it’s about social skills. There are plenty of extroverts that will never make it in leadership because they lack the skills.
- jinkyu 5y agowhen you work at the NSA, the extroverts look at your shoes when they talk to you.
- dartharva 5y agoThis article is just another example of clickbaity slander as they come. > Myth #2: Introverts don’t have the “people skills” to lead > Myth #3: Introverts are bad communicators The explanations given for these "myths" in the article are not reasonable enough. Anyway, these are not myths, they are observable and explicable patterns. Just like nearly every other skill, communication and people skills require practice. Introverts are much less likely to have enough practice for leadership-worthy people skills than extroverts, especially if they don't bother pushing their limits for it.
- neonological 5y agoI had a friend call him self a metrovert. A metrovert is someone who derives energy from socializing but also derives energy from being alone. I think I would be a metrovert. Tons and tons of these types of people exist. I'm curious as to why people decided to categorize everyone into just introverts and extroverts.
- musingsole 5y agoPeople are different, but thinking you're both an extrovert and an introvert...means you're closer to neither.
- neonological 5y agoSays who? You just made that up. A person who gains energy from social situations and from being alone fits the technical definition of both introvert and extrovert. This is the rational consequence and deduction from the English definitions of the words introvert and extrovert. The definition literally permits people to possess both qualities at the same time. Yet people choose to irrationally pursue this either/or mentality that both qualities exist on a single spectrum. So logically what you said makes zero sense. That means your illogical. Being illogical and irrational is completely independent of introversion or extroversion.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Shraal 5y agoCount me in! When is our next meeting? Joke aside, I also don't like this binary distinction because I find myself on both sides of the scale. Reading the comments here makes me think that there's probably a lot of unnecessary tribalism (we vs them), confirmation bias and overgeneralization that makes discussing this topic harder than it already is.
- thunkshift1 5y agoThis is one of those HN posts made to generate clicks for the media company and their articles. I think that bane of this forum and this practice should not be encouraged.
- gamechangr 5y agoHere's my take: There are always exceptions to the rule, but the general theory still applies. Sales is more important than we like to admit. In most sales - extroversion is an advantage. Extroverts tend to get more recognition and know more people. They are typically have an advantage when recruiting. Introversion has many advantages too. It's what makes one more likely to invest in developing a deeper skill. Introverts tend to deeply understand the problems they are solving and do a good job of removing red tape. In certain roles, they may have a better understanding of key potential hires. If the industry you are in in not technical, the odds are that a extrovert would be a better fit as a leader. if the industry you are in is technical and/or engineering, the odds are that an introvert would be as good a leader (and possibly better).