TED Community » Andy Bettisworth

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• A comment on Conversation: How do you deal with introvert vs. extrovert tensions?

  Mar 18 2012: Without knowing the context/my life I offer the reader this:
  To: 'the extrovert'
  Differentiate the competent and incompetent introvert, spending no time listening to the latter.
  
  To: 'the introvert'
  Your negative bias towards the leadership role stems from a failure within current cultural context to highlight your strengths; and their are many which prepare you for a place of authority. Hone your internal processes/mechanisms to offer you snap decisions. Lose the obligation to justify/share in the specifics; rely more on being right and offering review in lieu of your team's success carrying out said orders. It was the synergistic ability of snap unquestioning decision making and being right consecutively that landed me the majority of the project manager roles throughout my College years. Roles either group appointed or thrust upon me and not sought; the key was (aside from being consistently right and decisive) showing compassion to the extrovert's method of madness.
  
  WARNING: understand that through the loss of 'sharing' the decision making process you too lose the feeling of shared failure. The introvert will be more likely castigated for failure to execute than an extrovert. Case in point? Look to the story of how Steve Jobs got fired from his own company; an introverted leader himself.
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  A comment on Conversation: How do you deal with introvert vs. extrovert tensions?

  Mar 18 2012: This conversation connects with my own recent life events, attending a business school as self discovered introverted leader.
  
  The rate decisions are made, in my own experience, has had no correlation with the distinction between introvert or extrovert; contending only with competency of the individual. The introverted face such bias of decision making 'lag' in lieu of their judgment making process, which makes incompetency all the more painstakingly obvious than with extroverts. The incompetent introvert when faced with a challenge beyond their scope reflexively pause, seeking the internal mechanisms which they find comfort in. On the flip side, the extrovert when faced with a challenge beyond their scope reflexively seek out others' opinions, which has the potential to be perceived as a form of decisiveness/competency amongst peers.
  
  "The most comfortable place for an introvert is not as a leader"
  Heather White
  This notion that extroverts are more 'comfortable' within a leadership role than an equally competent introvert highlights only the cultural bias to place extroverts in said roles. Familiarity begets comfort and only through repeated interactions is this achievable. So, here is the call to action to introverts everywhere; you have a voice - speak.
  
  The distinctions between these two leadership styles was just not made in my western studies on organizations. Until we recognize, highlight, and integrate these two polar styles synergistically - our organizations everywhere will be the poorer.