A couple of posts ago, I mentioned something called the "Lemon Juice Test" that has been used to determine whether someone is predominantly an introvert versus an extrovert. You may be asking yourself the question, "Why does it matter?" There seems to be a widespread belief that great leaders are always extroverts - for example, President Bill Clinton, Muhammad Ali, and Winston Churchill were all famous leaders that happened to score very high on the extrovert scale. However, there are just as many famous leaders that were introverts - President Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Mohandas Gandhi, and Mother Teresa all score very high on the introvert scale.
There are a number of studies that do show that extraversion is one of the best personality predictors of successful leadership (see the review by Timothy Judge and colleagues describing some of the research supporting the so-called "great man hypothesis"). U.S. Presidents are generally perceived to be more effective leaders when they are extroverts (see the article reviewing this body of research). Unfortunately, most of the studies linking extraversion with effective leaders are highly subjective - there are few studies that show that extraversion is associated with objective measures of performance.
Adam Grant published a very interesting study that suggested that whether extroverts versus introverts made better leaders depended on what kinds of employees these leaders were trying to lead. In the first set of field experiments, Grant and his team found that pizza delivery stores with leaders who were rated high in extraversion consistently performed better (i.e., achieved higher profits) when employees were passive. Conversely, when employees were more proactive, pizza delivery stores with leaders who were rated high in introversion performed better! In the second set of experiments (conducted in the laboratory setting), passive groups achieved higher performance (in this case, the group was asked to fold T-shirts in a limited period of time, so performance was determined by the number of T-shirts that the group folded) when they were led by an extraverted leader. Conversely, proactive groups performed better when they were led by an introverted leader.
Why should the type of employees in the group matter? Grant and his colleagues suggested that when the followers are passive, the shyness and quietness of the introverted leader can be interpreted as a lack of interest or boredom in the task, which then decreases the followers' motivation to perform well. Conversely, when the followers are proactive, introverted leaders are perceived as more open and more willing to take feedback, leading to more engaged followers and better overall team performance. In other words, when followers believe that their leaders value their contributions and input, they are motivated to perform at a higher level!
Extraverted leaders, on the other hand, may be perceived by proactive followers as being less receptive to feedback and input. In this case, proactive followers are less engaged and perform worse than they would otherwise. Conversely, passive followers may need the "push" by the extraverted leader to excel.
I know what you are thinking - and you are right. Better performance in a pizza delivery store and/or a T-shirt folding task may not be transferable to other tasks or jobs. You could certainly argue that these results may not be replicable when dealing with a more difficult or complicated task. However, what I think the study shows is that context matters greatly. More importantly, I think the study shows that introverts can still be effective leaders. Just like extroverts, leaders who happen to be introverts will have their own unique strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, both types of leaders will be effective when they are paired with the right teams.
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