Leadership Skills for Introverts

The world is divided into introverts and extroverts. Introverts tend to like a lot of alone time, are comfortable by themselves or in small groups, and tend to be quiet in business meetings. Extroverts love large groups of people, are happiest at parties, and tend to speak up in business meetings.

Historically, extroverts have qualities that favor them in a lot of business settings. After all, think how important socializing with and talking to different groups of people can be in jobs, or how many advantages often go to those who can speak up frequently and quickly in meetings.

But introverts have many business strengths as well. They tend to be analytical and to like to explore many different opinions, often by reading. Those qualities can give them real strengths in business strategy and how best they — and their departments — can perform.

Here are the top leadership skills introverts have.

They are active listeners

Businesses can be filled with people who talk and give ideas, yet don’t listen. Introverts can be excellent active listeners. They listen to supervisors, team members and clients, honing in on what they’re really saying.

Active listeners can then guide teams toward a solution that will make supervisors, colleagues, and clients happy. That’s a great business skill.

They are reasonable and analytic

It’s easy to get emotional, especially when things are either going very right (huge sales increases or innovative products) or very wrong (plummeting sales, poor morale). People who are emotional sometimes make poor decisions, because they let their feelings dictate the course of action.

Introverts tend to step back and look at events logically. They like to read and analyze. As a result, they can often be relied on to be the reasonable voice, with calm steps toward action.

They can provide solid information and advice

Introverts don’t like speaking in public. They are more comfortable reading and writing. However, that means that they can provide excellent advice via written material, such as memos and reminders.

If the opportunity does come to speak at a conference or meeting, introverts can be counted on to have excellent, well-thought-out presentations. They don’t speak off the cuff, but tend to provide substance and reason.

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