Extroverts, introverts and practising resilience

The past few weeks I have not felt at maximum efficiency. Partly this has been because there has been a lot going on and many many meetings in the diary. But also, on the flip side, it has been holiday season and so there have been less people in the office, which I also find de-energising. This has led me to the conclusion that I must be a curious mix of extrovert and introvert. The longer I’ve been working the more I’ve realised it’s important to know whether you are one or the other (or a mix of both) because there are ways you can tailor your working environment to each that will make your time more efficient and enjoyable. This post is about my exploration of my own introverted and extroverted behaviours and how I’m learning to maximise the opportunities in both.

I have taken the Myers Briggs test twice during my professional career. Once as a fresh-faced and wide-eyed graduate and a second time as a (slightly) more seasoned professional. The first time I took it I was an ENFJ (Extrovert/Intuitive/Feeling/Judging). The second time my E had changed to an I. For introvert. What did this mean??

Introversion is not the same as being shy

I think it was my sister who first told me an alternate definition of the term introvert than the one I thought I knew. I had always presumed that being an introvert was a synonym for being shy. Instead, she told me it was about how we recharge and find energy not how loud and confident we are in a group or whether we like spending time with people. So introverts recharge by spending time alone whereas an extrovert can get their energy boost from spending time with a group of people. Obviously it’s a sliding scale, personally I find time with just my husband is enough to re-charge (I don’t think he reciprocates unfortunately) and can listen to music. Some people I know literally need silence and a dark room.

At the other end of the spectrum you’d have someone like a woman I worked with whilst I was at Unilever. She was a fantastic visionary leader and I still very much respect and admire her, but working for her in a challenging private sector environment nearly broke me. Long days in the office followed by evening events, constant networking and back to back meetings with agencies pressuring you for instant feedback.

For years I interpreted this as a personal failing. I didn’t have enough energy to keep up with her. Or I wasn’t efficient enough to get the job done in normal working hours. However, once my sister told me about the recharging definition of introversion I realised it wasn’t that I wasn’t ‘good enough’ but that I just needed balance my introvert and extrovert time to be at my best. If I’m honest though, I still thought that you needed to be an extrovert to be successful.

Introverted leaders

That’s because when I thought of leaders I thought of people giving presentations, running between back to back meetings and living and breathing their job in their personal as well as their private time.

Clearly, if you are an extreme introvert AND shy AND hate public speaking then leadership is not right for you. Not necessarily because you wouldn’t be good at it, but more because you’d have a horrible time of it. Every day would be stressful gauntlet of all the things you hate in life. Personally I’d be happy to earn a little less and not live that life, but the choice is yours.

But for those introverts who are able to implement ‘a strategic dose of extroversion’ leadership is definitely not an ‘extrovert thing’. You can use all of your deep thinking, empathy and good listening skills to become a ‘quiet changemaker’.

Some other introvert behaviours

As I said earlier, my definition of introversion has continued to evolve over the years. Introversion has been a bit de vogue recently, or maybe I’ve just been noticing it more. One of the things I found interesting in this article was the stuff about doing the thinking before a meeting. I guess I had kind of assumed that’s what everyone did. But now that it’s been called out to me as an introverted characteristic it makes a lot of sense.

Going back to my previous example of my extreme extrovert colleague, she could turn up to a meeting, have a new creative concept pitched to her and articulate a clear and thoughtful response right then and there on the spot. She used to give me the honour of being first to respond in some of these meetings. I don’t think she ever realised, but this was my worst nightmare.

I’ve learned that I need time to digest and actually write down my thoughts before I can give useful feedback on a ‘thing’ someone shares with me. I’ve started telling this to the people I work with — letting my line reports know that I’ll be able to give them better feedback if I have time to see the ‘thing’ before our meeting or asking agencies to share their work before they present it to me if they are expecting a response from me in the meeting (if they want to present it with a bang I’m happy with that too, they just can’t expect me to give them feedback in the same meeting if they go down that route). Some people I know put time in their diaries every Friday for ‘weeknotes’ or reflection time, or schedule 50 minute meetings so there’s ten minutes to either plan or reflect around the content. There’s plenty of ways we can make meetings work for us as introverts.

Practising resilience

I also read this article recently which feels very closely connected but has an additional nuance to it I think. It’s only short and has a singular point — resilience is not about being able to just keep going through whatever life throws at you. It’s about working hard, stopping and recharging and then getting back on the horse. The resilience part is actually about how efficiently you can re-charge, and your ability to pick yourself and dust yourself off when you come up against obstacles. I’m not very patient with tasks like crosswords or learning to juggle, but what I think I am good at is persevering in the face of problems at work. I am resilient not because I never have low energy days or times when everything feels overwhelming, but because I stop when I reach that point. Breathe. Prioritise a good night’s sleep or some exercise (OK, or occasionally watch some bad television). And then start again. By doing this I am basically prioritising some introvert time, because I know that is what I need to re-charge.

I try and teach my niece this skill whenever I spend time with her by doing small things like encouraging her to try a second and third time to fasten her own seatbelt. I don’t know if this will make any difference in the long run. But it’s worth a shot. There’s plenty of people saying resilience is key to not only your success in the workplace but also your personal happiness.

Introversion in the workplace

At the UK Government Digital Service we have an Introverts Network. They are doing some great things to improve the way our organisation operates for introverts. Personally, I am trying to be mindful of the different way people like to work in the way I plan and run meetings. Things like:

1. letting people know what the format of a meeting will be and what you’re trying to get out of it in advance;
2. giving people time to brainstorm ideas quietly on post it notes before launching into a discussion in a workshop;
3. sharing the outputs of a meeting after the event and giving people time to continue to contribute ideas once they’ve had a chance to mull it over individually.

A colleague has also recommended this short PDF book for ideas on how to experiment with inclusive leadership.

One of the members of the Introverts Network encouraged me to join. He said it is just as important that people are open and vocal about being an introvert. So last week, for the first time, I told my team ‘I’m going for some introvert time’. I found myself a comfy beanbag, plugged in my headphones and rattled through 8 of the things on my to do list that I’d been postponing all week. I felt much more efficient. #proudintrovert