Early on in my career, I became a single mum. That was to become my main career driver; my big ‘why’ for pushing on.
I recognised that if I wanted my son to grow up confident, I needed to model that behaviour: step out of my comfort zone, make bolder decisions in terms of my career progression and seize all opportunities that came my way, so that my son need never miss out.
I began to do a lot of self-development work – coaching, training courses and reading. I soon realised that contrary to what I’d always believed about myself, a lack of confidence wasn’t my issue. I might not be as confident as I could be in every single situation, but I took bold decisions and was far more assured in my opinions and ideas than some of my louder colleagues.
The answer came in the form of the results of my Myers-Briggs test. It showed that I was an introvert, and I wasn’t at all happy with that outcome.
I’d always felt that I didn’t fit in among my peers, and here was proof that that wasn’t down to a personal flaw. But instead of finding comfort in the root cause, I began to worry. I’d held an entrenched belief that if I wanted to get ahead, I had to be an extrovert – or at least act like one. The work I was doing on myself would need to take on a new direction. I would need to work on my self-acceptance as well as my self-development.
It didn’t take long for me to recognise that what I really wanted was to be myself at work. I didn’t want to pretend to be something or someone else.
As I learned and understood more about introversion, I realised that many of the beliefs I held are as wrong as they are common. Introversion isn’t a matter of ‘shyness’; it’s about how you draw your energy. As an introvert, I needed quiet reflection time in order to be able to create my best ideas and make my wisest decisions. No wonder I didn’t perform best in the types of meetings where the loudest voice ruled and decisions were made on the spot.
I had to get comfortable with speaking up quietly, in a way that felt authentic to me. The first time I spoke in front of an audience of nearly 1,000 people I spent a lot of time worrying that I needed to bounce up on stage, shouting and being gregarious. By giving myself permission to talk in my own quiet way – breaking the ice with a question that immediately engaged the audience – I surprised myself that I actually enjoyed being in the limelight.
High-energy public speakers are great, but not everyone can truly have that style, and nor does everybody like to be in the audience for that type of speaker.
I began to make time to fully prepare for ‘noise’ meetings I’d be attending, scrutinising the agenda in advance and preparing my points. I pushed myself to get comfortable stating that I wouldn’t be backed into making a decision there and then – that to make an informed choice I’d need to go away and do the thinking.
Though I’d always enjoyed networking, meeting new people and forming deep attachments, I now understood that as an introvert I found such events quite draining. So, I started better managing my calendar, ensuring that moments of solitude were scheduled in between appointments that required me to be ‘on’.
One of the more challenging aspects of leadership I had to contend with as an introvert was the idea of ‘self-promotion’. My manager gave me feedback that I needed to ‘big myself up’ more at senior meetings. I’d always thought that my work should speak for itself and the idea of taking my turn at bragging made me cringe.
My opportunity to self-promote in a way that felt true to me came when my division suffered a round of redundancies affecting the whole region. I worked collaboratively with my teams to inspire innovative ways to maintain performance throughout all the cuts. Proud of the work we’d done, I organised a World Café (sometimes called a ‘knowledge café’, these are types of business meetings which aim to provide open and creative conversations among multiple, small round tables, share ideas and insights and gain a deeper understanding of the issues).
It was a success; and a very senior figure told my boss that she was very impressed with my “calm, confident leadership style”. It’s a great example of how self-promotion doesn’t have to be all ‘me, me, me’. Instead, focus on the results and the difference you’re making.
Being calm under pressure can sometimes be perceived as not caring, and I’ve been on the receiving end of feedback that I appear to lack passion, which was difficult to hear. A lot more work needs to be done to ensure introverts are better understood in the workplace.
Being a line manager to an extrovert is a great way to help that cause – I always ensure that those louder individuals I have responsibility for are able to understand the impact they have on everyone they work with and that communication must be approached as a two-way process.
Getting comfortable with my introversion has enabled me to become an authentic leader. You can’t fight your preferences, so you’re better off embracing them.
The more you play to your true strengths, the more real confidence will emerge.
