On the list of leadership merit badges, “Successfully deliver hard news” is one the hardest badges to acquire. It’s not just that you have news, it’s hard news. It’s an honest something the human sitting across from you does not want to hear. Not only do you need to deliver it, but you need to… more
Introverts have two unique strengths that, I believe, can lead towards opportunities to be stronger leaders:
Introverts are professional listeners. Their natural state is to observe and gather data from the world around them as opposed to their extroverts counterparts who enjoying spending their time talking about the state of the world and all the fascinating data in the world… endlessly. This listening skill is amplified by the fact that introverts don’t much want to talk about themselves, so out of necessity they’ve developed a good conversation toolkit to get others to talk about themselves thus lessening their talking burden.
All of this listening results in the acquisition of data and all of this data results in better situational awareness. This awareness of what is going on in the immediate vicinity is amplified by the introverts deep desire to avoid interpersonal conflict. They have developed a strong early warning system around conflict amongst humans which means introverts are often aware of developing conflict well ahead of the actual conflict.
Both strengths result in a better picture of the social state amongst a group of humans. The trick for the introvert as leader is the proactive usage of that information. These strengths have been developed over years as a necessity to avoid human interaction, but in order to lead, we must ignore our instincts to run and hide from emerging conflict and rather use our well developed listening skills to not only understand what is developing, but how we’re going to lead through that distinctly uncomfortable situation.
We need to talk about your cat because your cat is pissing me off. Your cat is eating my socks. No. Really. Your cat has eaten four pairs of my socks. Yes, I know cats can’t digest cloth. Your cat does not have super-feline sock-eating and digestion skills. Your cat nibbles the toes off my… more
Some time during your tenure as a manager the sky is going to fall. I’m not talking about a schedule slip or a spirited meeting or being screwed. I’m talking a total disaster… yelling… fighting. Best case, HR is involved. Worst case, so are lawyers. This is conflict of a magnitude you’ll only see a… more
I hate meetings. Everyone hates them because we’ve all been to so many that have sucked so badly that we now walk into a conference room, sit down… arms folded, and think, “Ok, how long until this one is going to suck?” And then it does. Time is wasted. Hot air is created. Silent frustrations… more
