Why My Ambivert Personality Makes Me the Perfect Leader

“Are you in the engineering program?”
“No, why?”
“I don’t know, you just seem really reserved and quiet.”

This is what a girl said to me orientation day my first week at Cornell. Needless to say, I was dumbfounded because this was pretty much the antithesis of what I was told growing up. Just recently, a friend of mine told me that I must be good at public speaking since I’m so “outgoing.” One day I’m a quiet and introspective woman, the next day I’m the cheerful social butterfly. Everything about me is tailor made for the title of “extrovert”: I was a theatre and choir kid in high school, I love performing, and my attention span lasts a solid 15 minutes. But at the same time, networking and socializing is draining, I get anxious meeting new people alone, I dread small talk, I absolute despise group projects and sometimes I would much rather just be at home and watch Netflix documentaries than go out.

A little while ago, I ran into this TED talk by Susan Cain about the power of introversion. She describes the pitfalls of modern day culture in devaluing and misunderstanding introverts. She goes on to explain that schools and workplaces are designed for extroverts to function at their maximum potential, which is why they are favored by teachers and are given sought after job promotions. Introverts are viewed as awkward and antisocial because of their perceived lack of contribution to group activities. This misunderstanding can stunt the intellectual development of introverts because they are forced to conform to desired extroverted behaviors rather than performing tasks in the way that they can be most efficient.

Cain goes on to list the ways introverts are overlooked. They tend to be better leaders because they are open to other ideas and more careful, whereas extroverts “tend to put their stamp on things.” Introverts do better in school and get better grades than extroverts. They are more likely to deliver better results when given a task than extroverts.

Don’t get me wrong, her points really resonated with me. Western society does value the charismatic, decision making “man of action,” which is why the ideas of the quiet ones, no matter how great they may be, often get overlooked because you don’t hear them in a crowd of millions. In order to achieve notoriety or acknowledgement in this society, we must differentiate ourselves and stand out in the crowd, and this can inherently put more reserved individuals at a disadvantage. Structuring our institutions (i.e. school, work) so that people have the ability to contribute their ideas in the manner they feel most comfortable is crucial for intellectual growth and output of good work. However, I think human beings are a lot more nuanced than just titles of “introvert” “extrovert” or even “ambivert” which Cain describes as someone who falls in the middle of the introvert-extrovert spectrum. Our energy levels are influenced by who we are around, our environment, our mood that day, and a whole host of other psychological factors. Somedays I like to do collaborative work, other days, my mind is brewing with ideas racing at lighting speed and all I need is a laptop, Wi-Fi, some fruit snacks, and a nice uncluttered desk to get my ideas flowing on my own. It’s not that I am “an introvert” or “an extrovert”, it’s that I can be introverted and extroverted. For the most part, people express qualities of both, to varying degrees. This doesn’t predispose them to being a lesser quality leader, do average in school, or put their stamp on work rather than letting other’s contribute their ideas.

If I were to go with my friend to a networking event, and I noticed that she was an excellent schmoozer with industry professionals, I could come to the simplistic conclusion that “Dang, it must be so easy for her because she is extroverted.” This may not be true, however. She may not necessarily get energy out of networking, perhaps she is just very good at it! Maybe she sharpened her networking skills by attending 20 networking events for the past month, and now she’s learned the tricks of the trade. As humans, we have the proclivity to organize people into labels they don’t necessarily prescribe to, which is why making these cutthroat distinctions between “introverts” and “extroverts” will only create unnecessary assumptions about people’s leadership qualities, communication skills and work efficiency. When you add gender stereotypes, female competency can be questioned because they either adhere to the stereotypes of soft spoken introverts, thus incompetent, or they violate expectations by being more assertive and extroverted, thus bossy.

My point is, these labels have little merit in determining exactly how efficient, or how good of a leader someone is. We shouldn’t have to be subject to any singular title based on our preferred ways of working or personality traits. At the same time, as Cain articulated brilliantly, acknowledge that not everyone cognitively functions on the same wavelength, everyone has their own way of brainstorming, creating and presenting. For some people, this is more collaborative, for others, this requires more solitude. Both modes of thinking are necessities, one might be more challenging for us than the other, but it certainly doesn’t mean we should be put into a box.