The Introvert Executive and the Intersection with "Good to Great"
Saturday, May 26, 2012 at 11:23PM At a recent business event, the luncheon speaker lauded celebrity CEOs, making a shockingly weak argument that their charisma somehow correlates with their companies' success. He didn't cite numbers to prove it, but simply gave anecdotes about how CEOs you've never heard of didn't have long tenures, while "brand-name" CEOs had great success and long careers.
Sigh. I could pick apart his argument in depth, but it'll get me off topic. "Extroverts are awesome" isn't exactly a new thing to hear, and it's not unusual for someone to assume that a big personality means an impressive skill set. The world is enamored of extroverts in every capacity. People are drawn to big, brash personalities. True for celebrities, true for politicians, and true for businesspeople.
I'm an introvert. I enjoy people, and I even enjoy big events. But though I have fun while I'm with a big group or at a party, I find it exhausting. I need to recharge afterward. And I'm definitely at my best in smaller groups, where I can fully engage with people and get to know them. Some people like surface, some people like deep. I like deep.
Home, where this introvert recharges.
But the luncheon presentation got me thinking again about the myth of the celebrity CEO, especially as that personality type relates to the health and success of a business. And that musing reminded me of Jim Collins's research, which he recounted in Built to Last and Good to Great.
As told in these books, Collins and a team of students spent five years examining why some companies achieved "great" results and sustained them over decades, while others in the same industries struggled or subsisted at a mediocre level. The team studied twenty-eight companies in minute detail, and defined great results as generating cumulative stock returns that averaged seven times better than the general stock market over fifteen years.
Collins and his group identified seven key factors that they argue help determine corporate greatness. If you haven’t read the books, you should. I won't summarize all their findings here.
But what they found--or didn't find--about CEOs isn't what they--or anyone else--would have expected:
"Compared to high-profile leaders with big personalities who make headlines and become celebrities, the good-to-great leaders seem to have come from Mars. Self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy--these leaders are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will."
I truly believe this. Perhaps I'm biased, because I'm no celebrity CEO, and I don’t have a big, bold personality. Richard Branson and Jack Welch, I’m not.
But I agree that a person with incredible determination--a willingness to roll up her sleeves and do anything that needs to be done--combined with a willingess to listen to others, share credit, be part of the team, and see the collective as greater than the individual is a better leader and a better chief executive than someone enamored with her cult of celebrity or her own genius.
Not to say that all extroverts are bulls in china shops. Just as all introverts aren't shy. Nothing is absolute. I'm just wondering, mayhaps, if there's a correlation between introversion and the "great" companies' CEOs--which Collins and his team called "Level 5 Leaders." Their research didn’t look at that aspect of the leaders’ personalities directly, but my gut tells me there’s something there.
And if there is, are we undervaluing the introvert executive?
Reader Comments (10)
You may find this article interesting:
The hidden advantages of quiet bosses
Great find, MTBI "I" guy! Love this especially: "The extroverted leaders appeared threatened by and unreceptive to proactive employees. The introverted leaders listened carefully and made employees feel valued, motivating them to work hard."
Also, I thought it was interesting, the research into the dynamic between the type of employees (passive or proactive) and the type of leader (extrovert or introvert): "While it’s often true that extroverts make the best bosses and proactive employees make the best workers, combining the two can be a recipe for failure. Soft spoken leaders may get the most out of proactive employees—so save the outgoing, talkative managers for teams that function best when they’re told what to do."
Thank you for sharing this find!
I feel that as in much of life it's all a situational matter.
My first boss was an older ex-Tenneco executive. He was very sought after as a speaker for professional groups and for conventions yet he was a quiet and withdrawn in person. He would set projects in motion with a minimum of intervention and allow those under him to pursue the matter in our own way but holding them accountable for the outcomes.
Our approach to projects was sedate, almost academic in nature. We would take months to create reports, maps, and presentations but in the end we had very satisfied clients.
My second boss on the other hand had a booming loud voice and was apt to burst out laughing at the least provocation. He would literally burst into a meeting and take over the conversation.
Along with this came an almost obsessive need to micromanage projects down to the last detail. A trait that did not endear him to most employees yet pushed everyone working to new levels of excellence. I often thought to myself that I got more work done in six months under him than the previous eight years under my previous employer.
In both cases the companies I worked for had different managerial styles but the outcomes were similar. Both companies were small but produced high quality work and generated revenues that belied their small size.
The managerial styles are different but I find they share one thing in common. Confidence. When people feel that you are confident and that you know what you are doing it calms them, it comforts them, it lets them focus on the task at hand. Whether that confidence comes from telling people "I trust you to do the right thing" or "I know how it's done and you will do it this way!" it gives structure to those below.
I think these examples from your career to date are more tied to leadership style than introversion and extroversion, William. But good points that confidence is critical to leadership! (And that might be a good idea for a post!)
I just started reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. It's a good read thus far. The history of how this country became so focused on celebrity and big personalities is very interesting (blame Dale Carnegie).
In all fairness and bias, I think the extrovert vs introvert issue is a bit misleading or at least overrated. Managerial style, confidence, and several other factors are likely to have as much or more influence on a company's success. And people are rather complex creatures not subject to accurate sorting on just a few factors.
Bias because I'm an extrovert. And I like deep.
I just got that book over the holidays, David! I can't wait to dig in--someone else recommended it to me as well. I'll tackle it and then maybe we could grab coffee/drinks/food and discuss.
And true, Dan, nothing can be boiled down to any one characteristic--including a company's success or failure. However, certain leadership characteristics do tend to show up more frequently in the companies profiled in Collins's research. If you haven't read the book, you definitely should--it's a fascinating read!
Let's definitely do that Leslie!
Actually I have read Jim Collins' books, though it's been a long time and it would be good to reread them. Certainly a blend of characteristics would show trends. The day I wrote that comment, I'd been dealing with too much classification of people and predictions of behavior based on just one characteristic - so that might have made me feisty.
Still I love a quote I came across (cannot recall the source): "There are two kinds of people. Those who divide people into two groups, and those who do not."
David--I started the book this week with you in mind! I'll drop you a line when I've finished reading it. Interesting so far!
And Dan, I agree. I certainly would never argue against there being a spectrum in almost every case. Never a strict dichotomy. (And there's never anything wrong with being feisty!)