We are taught that to influence decisions in the worksplace, we must behave with gravitas and express our perspectives with strengths. We must stand out from the crowd and be seen. Hence, introverts have received the short end of the stick so far. I am an introvert and my story is a familiar story for many of us, introverts, who struggle keeping up appearances until it becomes unbearable. I will share my journey of finding my place in the professional landscape dominated by such extroverted prowess and showing that there’s immense power in authenticity (1). This realization brings me to explain that there is more than one way to be influential, and it doesn’t have to be rooted in extroversion (2). Finally, I will share what every introvert should share to their bosses and fellow workers (3).
1. Do Not Pretend to be Someone Else
The challenge. Starting my first role in asset management, I tried to be just like my colleagues, an extrovert. I wanted to appear dynamic, bold, outspoken, and highly visible. I did not want to feel excluded, overlooked, or misunderstood. As a result, every morning, I’d paste a cheerful and energetic smile on my face, check the news to comfortably engage small talk and prepare myself to say yes to any commitment. I found myself stuck into being a pseudo-gregarious marketing analyst that perpetually leapfrogs between mastering an entirely new field of expertise, forging connections with colleagues, and steering through the unfamiliar terrain of office politics. Hence every evening, I’d end up exhausted.
The solution. When looking for the next move to launch an international career, I was at a crossroads. I had a decision to make: either burn out, walk away from the corporate world or embrace my true introverted self. I chose the latter. Revealing my authentic self at work wasn’t easy. Initially, I felt labeled a ‘quiet quitter,’ a term that stung. I was warned to show more active participation. Despite the pressure, I persisted in my own way. Over time, my colleagues started to warm up to me and realised that I cared about their business. I decided to communicate with my stakeholders in a way I was comfortable with. I didn’t check in anymore just for the sake of office visibility, and made sure every interaction was purposeful with meaningful insights to share, or well-considered requests to submit. To maintain a consistent connection with my stakeholders and to constantly reassure on my engagement, I provided weekly written updates that were clear and concise on my involvement in various initiatives. I finally reserved donning my ‘extrovert hat’ only for exceptional situations like networking events or quarterly reviews.
The moral of the story. Quietly and resolutely, I proved that there’s room for a different working style in the corporate world — one that values substance over noise. In blending my natural inclination to introversion with my triggered ability to extraversion, I learned which game of influence I should play without pretending to be someone else. As an introvert, I am not well equipped to win what is essentially a personality contest. It skews the playing field in favor of the extrovert. In competitive and fast-paced situations like pannel recruitment, performance appraisals, or proactively business processes and strategies shifting, extrovert persuasion is a more powerful technique than my introvert inspiration. Because then, assertions are based in hype and conjecture, and my stakeholders often fail to spot my introvert worth on time. Veracity only wins over coercion in the long run. As a result, we _introverts_ need to play another game: the endurance race.
2. Embrace your Own Method of Influence
In order to better influence decision-making processes, introverts can find their own method of influence by becoming rational advocates, chess players, smart questioners, selective speakers or honest team players.
The Rational Advodate
Introverts are prone to demonstrate a strong work ethic and dedication to their tasks. They tend to meticulously dive deep into their subject matter to feel confident enough to defend an opinion or decision. They want to become knowledgeable experts. They find it almost impossible to sell a project unless they deeply believe in the value of what they are offering. As a result, they will build a solid foundation and experience in their area of expertise to be able to comfortably use logical arguments and concrete examples.
My Recommendations
You should practice quiet leadership. It implies leading by example and inspiring others by showing them. Your own own consistent actions can sometimes be enought to demonstrate the benefits of your proposal. So practice what you preach, be consistent in your message and actions over time and follow through on your commitments. Frequently share valuable insights, case studies, and data-driven recommendations. This way your reliability will solidify your credibility and establish yourself as a trusted advisor.
Then if you want to be recognized for all the hard work that you have put in, you need to go outside of your comfort zone. We know it is hard to be the center of attention, but there are ways to keep your achievements visible and public without submitting to pseudo-extroversion. First, the best way to make your managers recognize you is to do something. Volunteer to head a meeting, present a project, or speak to your manager if you think a fellow employee needs help. Talk to your coworkers if you have any questions or concerns instead of keeping it for yourself. This will make your coworkers see you as being more open and approachable. Secondly, you should also highlight any significant contributions in presentations and projects and keep a record of your successes to bolster your quarterly reviews. It is not about boasting but about getting merited recognition for your hard-earned accomplishments that will lead to better career opportunities.
Eventually, people are more likely to be influenced by an emotional appeal than a logical one. So take the time to consider your value proposition. Deeply understand the needs of the other party in order to offer a solution that matches their requirements. Think deeply on the benefits it will bring to the other party. Highlight the positive impact of your proposal on others. Then try to present facts supporting your better path in an engaging fashion. Use words and phrases that will convince to see things your way: avoid negative words and phrases. All in all, be well-prepared, more persuasive and rehearse your message. You can actually even use social proof and show that others support your position with written testimonials. If you are too uncomfortable, at least use success proof by highlighting the success and benefits of similar proposals in the past.
The Chess Player
Before making a decision, introverts are known for studying in minute detail the risks, opportunities, benefits, strengths, and weaknesses of the project. They are strategic thinkers. They must observe situations before taking part in them. They analyse before acting and look for meaning in what they undertake. Their sense of detail and investigation allow them to be cautious when setting scalable goals. While extroverts might go with the flow in a conversation, introverts are skilled at calmly staying focused on a target. Therefore, they will not make decisions impulsively.
My Recommendations
You should make out the best of your active listening skills and regularly observe and document your stakeholders goals, motivations and values. This way, when looking at the metaphorical chess board, you’ll be able to think five moves ahead and to set clear and achievable goals to garantee meeting both your project deadlines and expectations.
Then, when setting processes and objectives, try to focus on offering more freedom, flexibility and ownership to your team mates and supporting your their creativity and innovation. To this end, you should set strict but limited constraints and prioritise each of your expected outcome features. Indeed constraints stimulate creativity and prioritised features encourage the right innovation. Also, start with asking for small commitments; only then build up to larger ones.
Introverts might not seem gifted for improvisation and spontaneous action. Though it is just a question of preparation. Organize your thoughts and arguments ahead of your negotiations, brainstorming sessions or collective thinking meetings. Outline your proposal and anticipate potential objections. Build analytical processes whenever possible to be able to quickly react to new information. Finally, by staying focused on the objective of your social interaction, you’ll significantly reduce the likelihood of straying off-script; and if you are still apprehensive about freezing up during a live session, consider partnering with an extrovert who can effortlessly maintain the flow of the conversation.
Another thing to keep in check when setting your goals is that analysing and processing the information your brain has just stored takes time. As a result, you would tend to concentrate on one activity in order to solve one problem at a time. This is where it can cause limitations when multitasking. So regularly refresh your priorities according to your mission statement and cannily pair yourself with an extrovert to keep your agenda in check and make sure your deadlines are not too lenient, potentially hindering your momentum and urgency.
The Smart Questioner
Introverts are better observers and listeners than extroverts as they are more patient. They are also calmer, they respect silence and give other people space to talk; so they don’t overpower a conversation or interrupt their peers to make their points heard first. As a result, introverts are smart questioners and great intelligence gatherers. They foster strong working relationships and genuinely understand their peers in order to provide thoughtful responses or solutions.
My Recommendations
You should start building and nurturing relationships over time by remembering that large group environments will not be the best place for you to shine. You should rather actively create situations favoring one-on-one conversations like pairing for team work, catching up over coffee, arranging a phone call or sending an email _ anywhere that allows the other person to hear you away from the distraction of noisy extroverts.
Then, try to observe your peers in their natural setting, like their office or their own team meetings. You will be able to catch faster the essence of their personality while they feel more comfortable.
Finally, what you should do during these sessions is to learn about, understand and demonstrate empathy towards each of those: your peers’ challenges, concerns, goals, motivations and values. It will help you identify influential triggers with greater ease.
The Selective Speaker
Introverts are not as outspoken as their extroverted counterparts so, to be able to communicate effectively in public, they need to fully comprehend the information and its implications. They are aware that finding the right words for the right moment is 80% of influential communication. So before speaking up, they need to take a moment and think. As a result, introverts are known for being more meticulous with their words than extroverts and for conveying messages that are clearer and easier to understand.
My Recommendations
You should favor written communication or well-prepared presentations. Do present arguments in a straightforward manner and, when possible, support them with data-driven findings, using visual aids (charts, graphs, infographics). The good news, is that we are entering an era of remote working so you’ll be more comfortable leading a videoconference, since the meeting is essentially more structured and the floor can be more easily distributed.
No need to speak when you don’t have anything valuable to say. It is Okay to be a selective speaker. When you do decide to speak, be sure you have analyzed all the scenarios critically, and you’ll be able to contribute something meaningful albeit short. As time goes on, you can be regarded as the co-worker everyone looks to for solutions when they’re done talking.
The Honest Team Player
Introverts will usually prefer to work independently because they need more calm and space to concentrate deeply. This is because, when other people get involved, they will automatically put the attention on other’s instead of remaining the center of attention. Hence, they approach their decision to join a team with utmost seriousness because they anticipate how time consuming it will be. Yet, introverts are great additions to a team as their independence makes them autonomous, effective and reliable team members, while their patience, empathy and attentiveness to the ideas of his or her colleagues will ensure they remain supportive and focus on the collective success. As the introvert’s ego isn’t wrapped up in the conversation, they are generally very good at being flexible and diplomatic in their communication and collaboration, doing what it takes to let the whole team shine.
My Recommendations
To keep yourself engaged, start by defining the unique value you bring to the team, particularly in problem-solving. Ensure you consistently meet your commitments and deliverables. If you find your role isn’t contributing effectively, reassess and clearly outline your expectations for participating in team meetings. Ask yourself, “What’s in it for me?”. Opt out of any collaborative workshops that lack tangible value or relevance to your goals.
Also, try to pair yourself with an extroverted colleague. A duo (rather than a trio and more) will not appear too high maintenance and you will be able to leverage your unique attributes to create a balanced and dynamic team. An extrovert, with his knack for persuasion and immediacy can bring a vibrant energy to your team. When you might hesitate to express yourself or take the lead in social settings, your extrovert can help by engaging and bonding with your audience, by voicing your ideas confidently and gathering diverse feedback to feed your analysis. Similarly, while extroverts are often active and expressive, thriving in social interactions and finding energy in contact with others, they can sometimes become strong-tempered, act too quickly or struggle to listen deeply. This is where you can step in, offering discreet and sensitive insights that encourage a more measured approach.
3. Share these Insights to your Manager
Drawing upon my previous experiences, I like to share the following insights with my direct manager and colleagues.
Don’t confuse our lack of participation with a lack of engagement. Do not mistake our restrain for disinvestment, reluctance, arrogance, fear, anxiety or even a lack of intelligence. We might sometimes appear cold and distant while we are actually believing to appear focused and discreet. Best thing to do in this situation, if you want to know what we think, is to ask us questions. Encourage us to speak up in a supportive atmosphere and in small groups, as we will find more difficult in front of a larger crowd. Choose a mode of communication that is most in tune with our habits, like discussing things in writing, rather than verbally.
Trust our need for independence, not isolation. Do not isolate us and exclude us from the communication channels just because we are not as participative as extroverts. Give us time and space to recharge our social batteries. Respect our need for a peaceful environment where we can deeply focus and quietly work on solving problems on our own.
Save up our extroversion for when you need it the most. Introverts aren’t incapable of extroversion. Actually we are all ambiverts, a unique variations between introversion and extroversion. However as extroversion goes against our preferred behavior, it takes a great deal of energy for us to broadly socialise; and staying in an extroverted state for too long will be like trying to write all day with our non-dominant hand. As a result, choose roles and activities where our introversion can shine. We are at our best with a hybrid role where we can achieve flexbility in our office hours. We usually know our limits pretty well. When we need time alone between two interactions with other people in the organization, we will find a way to ask for it. For example, when working in an open plan office, we would usually book our own meeting room for an hour or two. That way, we can preserve our energy and extrovert when it’s needed the most like in meetings, when presenting, or at social events.
To conclude, I expect my manager to take the time to understand how the personalities in their team work so that they can adapt their management. I want them to be more open to different collaboration styles. Actually, in the age of remote working, introvert managers are almost becoming more popular than extroverts. Once we have the talk, they would ask in return how I expect to work with extroverts. Easy. When dealing with extroverts, I take time to give feedback, recognition and attention. I accept their need to express themselves out loud. To do this, I plan time for them to explain their ideas. I value their energy and positive momentum by offering them the opportunity to lead certain meetings, team building sessions or gatherings.
Explore more
Susan Cain (2013) Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
Jennifer B. Kahnweiler (2015) The Genius of Opposites: How Introverts and Extroverts Achieve Extraordinary Results Together
Jennifer B. Kahnweiler (2018) The Introverted Leader: Building on Your Quiet Strength
Kate Jones (2017) A Practical Guide to Influence for Introverts
Johann Molinari (2021) Introverts, extroverts: when personalities impact the company
Chastity Heyward (2021) How Introverts Can Make An Impact In Their Workplaces