Leadership From An Introvert Perspective
I am more of an introverted leader as I am good at one-on-one interaction, empathy and have the ability to concentrate amid distraction. In order to leverage my personality to be a more effective leader, I should try to be more comfortable in a group, should try to determine effective ways to interact and communicate with the team members, listen to everyone’s opinions and problems, should develop a strong sense of confidence and should solve problem with thoroughness rather than in haste.
When coming to coordinating a large number of people or group to do a single task or some crucial work, I think extraverts make more effective leaders than introverts because they have that commanding quality and the communication skills that is crucial for managing a large group with common goal. Also in the field of marketing jobs extroverts will shine more than introverts.
Introverts listen, consider what has been said, and then speak. This is helpful in business meetings. The introvert ponders what everyone says that help the team move forward. Their quality of listening also allows to consider what everyone has to say rather than drowning out other people’s ideas with their own. Unlike extroverts, introverts avoid acting impulsively, they are prone to preparation and exude a quiet power. Before meetings, speeches or any important decisions, introvert list their points, rehearse multiple times and speak clearly, giving them an advantage in a frenzied situation.
The main problem with an introverted leader is that they are not comfortable in a group, in order to overcome that introverted leaders should determine effective ways to interact and communicate with their team members. So to handle that problem they can schedule weekly meetings with team members so that they can prepare in advance for giving feedback and discussing work. Determine how different team members like to give and receive feedback, whether it is in person or via email, they should challenge themselves to tailor their feedback to its recipient. Over communicate instruction and contextual information that the leader might not share as openly in a team meeting. Also they should explicitly communicate praise, either in person or via email, so that the team members feel appreciated and motivated to work in the team.
A great experience that would be highly valuable to an introvert would be taking a public speaking course. Neither introvert nor extrovert are guaranteed to succeed in the business world. Success is determined by the actions we take, not by who you are as a person. One should work past the introversion by developing oneself into a more communicative, charismatic figure. Bill gates, the founder of Microsoft, started as a solitary introvert, but he used the people around him to complement his own strengths and weakness. Reading a more about such personalities and try to extract some of their strategies will help an introverted person to become a successful leader.
There are many factors that make organization ineffective with managing emotions in the workplace. Human beings complex thinking is one of the factors that make organizations hard to manage emotions. Every person is different and are from different cultural and economic background, so they may not act in the same way in same situations. Therefore, the organization face difficulties dealing with the employee’s emotion especially when the organization is large and contains many employee’s from different background. Also, organizations are unable to relate to their employee’s, and their lack of constant contact with their staff can be other factor. It is important to be in constant contact with the employees and make sure they feel comfortable to communicate to their managers anything and everything on their mind so that the organization can ensure that emotions and moods are up-beat and energetic.
To my mind, by covering ones emotion can sometimes ensure a work to be done perfectly, but it is important to remember that bottling up our true inner emotions and keeping them to ourselves, will only make things worse. That can create communication gap and messing up of works in the organization. People that are covering their own emotion will always find themselves in a stressful situation and can be easily frustrated and lose confidence in their job. Problems such as satisfaction of jobs, depression and low job performance and so on will arise. I don’t think crying at work is acceptable. There is a time and place for everything, and crying should be saved for home due to the fact that it could hurt your image and current position at work. It will seem like we are vulnerable and are not strong enough to face the situation. When I say crying at work is not good, I don’t mean that employees should bottle up their emotions. Organizations need to be in constant contact with employees and make sure they feel comfortable telling managers anything and everything on mind.
I think organization should take specific steps to become better at allowing emotional displays. There should be a healthy relationship between the manager and employees. The manger should keep something like a “check-in” appointment in their office so that they would call each employee individually once a month, where managers would get friendly with them so that they would tell them what was going good and bad and their thoughts on the current task at hand. If the task is very difficult to be managed by the manager alone, they can keep a suggestion box or email, where employees could put in their suggestion. Or they can give that responsibility to one person so that the manger can consult him to know what’s going on.