Month: August 2014

Saying no can save your career

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Dear fellow Intelligent Introverts – looking at this article I wrote for the Washington Post in 2010 I thought it would be great to share with this group. So here you are. Enjoy! 

Saying no can save your career

In 2004, my friend Mavis and I were sitting in a local cafe and I was talking about a new job my boss had offered me. The project I had been working on was complete and I planned on starting my own coaching business.  Mavis was listening as I described with dread what it meant for me to take this job. It would rob me of the independence I so longed for, kill my enthusiasm and lust for learning, sap my time and energy, keep me from my dreams … Mavis interrupted my litany with a simple statement that stopped me in my tracks.

“You know Jeanine, you can say no.”   Read more

Characteristics of the Quiet Leader

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Building on yesterday’s post about introverts as excellent leaders I wanted to highlight the work of Frances B. Kahnweiler, author of The Introverted Leader: Building on Your Quiet Strength.   She describes 5 key characteristics of introverted leaders which I’ve adapted slightly:

1. We think first and talk later. We consider what others have to say, then reflect and then respond;
2. We focus on depth not superficiality. We like to dig deeply into issues and ideas before considering new ones; We like meaningful rather than superficial conversations. Continue reading →

Introverts make great leaders: Receptive and open

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Successful leadership is associated with traits of extroversion such as being talkative, outspoken, and directive.  Yet new research challenges this popular belief.  Francesca Gino of Harvard University and her colleagues conducted research where they found that introverted managers are better leaders when employees are proactive as their style of leadership is receptive and open. Introverts listen to employee input more and often build on and implement their ideas. In the same circumstances, extroverted leaders can feel threatened by more outspoken followers and interpret this as a question to their authority. On the other hand extroverted managers are more successful when employees are passive or lack motivation since their dynamic and directive style can motivate these employees.

Continue reading →

You are an introvert?! No way!

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How many of you get this response?  I certainly do and it creates a tangle of reactions in me.  On one hand I feel like an impersonator – that I’ve been misrepresenting myself to the world.  As one friend recently revealed to me “I have been faking it . . . and,” she added, “it is so painful.”  So that is another reaction.  The raw ache of being required by an extrovert-worshiping culture to act inauthentically in order to fit in, be successful, be liked, be heard and seen.  Of course many of us were faking it – that was an adaptive coping mechanism.   Continue reading →

Networking part II: Create our own meetings

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As introverts the best strategy for networking is to do it in a way that honors our style.  Instead of attending a lot of large networking events – create your own networking lunches, coffees and other one-on-one meetings.  This allows you to have  intimate conversation and connection that is energizing and rewarding for you. Plus you get to choose with whom you meet rather than relying on who shows up at a larger networking event.  It is your choice!  Who doesn’t love choice?

How to get started? Continue reading →

Whose horn should I toot? Introverts and self-promotion

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Once I sent my resume to a friend as an example of how to write one organized by accomplishments rather than chronological order.   He couldn’t believe all I had accomplished and gave me laudatory feedback, “You did all this?!”  He is one of our family’s best friends and yet he had no idea what I had achieved. This experience made me take pause as I realized this is one of my biggest professional challenges. I internally cringe anytime I have to bring attention to what I’ve done. So I tend not to. Here is the downside: this can wreck havoc on your career. If you do awesome work and no one knows – what difference does it make? Key stakeholders do not see our value and contribution. This means we are less likely to have vocal advocates and less likely to get promoted. Indeed research shows that introverts get promoted much less than extroverts and this isn’t about skill, talent or accomplishments.

Continue reading →

“Just a minute . . . I am thinking.”

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So here is another classic relationship dynamic.  Extrovert is talking to introvert – proposing a new idea, presenting information, asking for something.  Introvert is taking it in – processing the information.  Extrovert waits a moment or two then is exasperated that introvert hasn’t responded.  S/he may feel dissed and says something to that effect.  Introvert is flummoxed (internally of course) because s/he is simply thinking and needs time to think.  Introvert now feels defensive or misunderstood.  Sound familiar?

Continue reading →

When playing tennis play your side of the net

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A key distinction between introverts and extroverts is that introverts’ energy and attention tends to focus inward and extroverts’ energy and attention tends to focus outward. How does this play out in relationships? Extroverts are more likely to put the responsibility for problems and issues onto external conditions and other people (outward focus) and introverts are more likely to take the responsibility on (inward focus). So the result often is that introverts are blamed and take the blame – while extroverts point the finger.  Hmm . . . dangerous dynamic for both introverts and extroverts!  Of course these are “tendencies” and there are many examples when this is NOT the case. Yet the trend in this direction exists.
 Continue reading →

It’s Friday. Enjoy down time

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Fridays I am tired.  After a week of all my family activity with a soon-to-be-5-year-old daughter (whose social life alone exhausts me : ), seeing clients, writing blogs, and everything else in my juicy life – I am pooped when Friday rolls around.  And I love to simply surrender to it.  So as I was laying down with my daughter for her Friday afternoon nap – I thought “blog or nap?” and guess what won?  NAP!  Yummy!  After about half an hour I woke up and enjoyed the precious presence of my sleeping daughter in my arms.  Paying attention to her delicate features, the beauty of her closed eyes and long lashes, the sturdy arch of her eye brows and the sweet curve of her nose.  How good it felt to slow things down to experience this moment and feel the gratitude.  And I still had time for the blog.  Enjoy your Friday friends!

Make it intimate: The key to surviving networking (and other large) events

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Introverts love people as much as extroverts yet we are easily over stimulated in large groups and by the quick-moving-bantering-style of communication that often characterizes networking events and much of today’s conversations.  Instead we thrive in one-on-one and small group conversations.  Therefore the best strategy for introverts is to turn each networking or other large event into an intimate conversation.  Find someone you are drawn to and then rely on your introverted strength of creating meaningful intimate conversation with this one person.  Your good listening and ability to take the conversation deeper may lead to a connection you will enjoy and benefit from for years to come.  

Continue reading →