I am an Introvert. Is there anything wrong with that?

Posted on November 29, 2021 by Johncey George, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.

Introverts are individuals who gain their energy when they spend time in solitude. Their natural tendency is to be quiet and conserve their energy.

Who else is out there?

In addition to introverts, there are also extroverts and ambiverts. Extroverts are those who gain their energy when they spend time with other people. Ambiverts are people who exhibit qualities of both extroverts and introverts; they can switch to introversion or extroversion depending on their mood, context, goals and the people around them.

However, the word ‘Introvert’ usually has a negative connotation associated with it. It often creates a negative perception in the listener’s mind. Why is that? In order to address this, you have to understand who introverts really are.

The basic difference between introverts and extroverts is in the way they thrive and gain their energy; the former when spending quiet time with themselves and the latter, when they spend time with others.

Here is a quick way to find out if you are an introvert, if you don’t know already. Check whether the following applies to you:
- Feel drained or tire out after 15-20 (or even less) minutes of chatting with someone
- When someone mentions the word ‘party’, your instinctively search for an excuse to miss it.
- Hate attending seminars because the thought of talking to people during the breaks or the networking sessions fill you with dread
- You are in a meeting with several people; someone asks a question, though you know the answer, you struggle at the thought of calling attention to yourself and before you know it, someone else has answered the question
- As a child, you were uncomfortable around visitors to your house and would run away to another room and sit with your toys or your story book
- You believe and know you do amazing work, but don’t like to talk about it. You prefer to let others figure it out themselves and then acknowledge your work and efforts.
- The loud music in a restaurant or at a party drains your energy within a short while of being there
- Get irritated or annoyed easily in situations where you might be around a lot of people, for e.g., a mall, market, at a buffet, parties etc.

If you identify with a few of the above, chances are that you are an Introvert.

So coming back to your question, I am an Introvert. Is there anything wrong with that? Absolutely not! That is, who you are as a person. Research shows that over 30% of world population are introverts. So, it is not surprising that you are one of them.

However, there is a general and common misconception that introverts are shy, unsociable and lacking in confidence. The introverts’ quiet nature foster these misconceptions even more.

There are plenty of world-famous introverts out there to disprove this misconception. Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Marissa Mayer and Elon Musk, to name a few. It doesn’t end there: Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Rosa Parks and the list goes on. This list is ample evidence that being an introvert does not stand in the way of success in life.

However, introverts can find corporate environment particularly challenging. Let’s look into the reasons for this.

The corporate world is usually considered an extroverted environment where you are expected to collaborate with others, speak up in meetings, network with your peers, management team, customers, and vendors. Since all of these activities involve interaction with others, introverts in the organization can find these particularly draining. Because of their inherent quiet nature, introverts are often misunderstood as shy, unsociable, lacking ideas and confidence, and hence are ignored for leadership roles.

So, they need unique strategies which will help them overcome the challenges in the corporate world, make their presence known and perform well.

Everyone has blind spots about their personality. It is essential that introverts realize that their uniqueness has the potential to hinder their growth within their organization. They need to be visible to the team and seen to be speaking up, inspiring, and demonstrating sharper leadership presence. They have to brand themselves to make their presence better known within the corporate environment. Personal branding helps to highlight the introverts’ inherent strengths such as creativity, deep thinking, ability to build sincere and long-lasting relationships, listening and observational skills.

Failing this, their presence within the organization may not be visible enough to senior management and they may get overlooked when it comes to career progression.

So appealing all introverts out there….

Realize the needs in a business environment and adapt accordingly. You don’t need to become an extrovert or try to become an extrovert. An introvert will always remain an introvert; the same applies to an extrovert too. It is essential that introverts have the self-awareness to realize that they may need to learn unique strategies to meet the needs of the corporate world.

Author: Johncey George is an International Coaching Federation accredited Leadership and Life Coach. He is a ICF PCC and an empaneled coach with several organizations. Johncey focuses on Executive Leadership coaching.

Johncey has special interest and expertise in coaching introverts. He is India’s first and leading Leadership Coach for Introverts. He helps them celebrate their strengths and become successful as leaders. Being an introvert himself, he understands their thinking process. He combines this knowledge, his corporate leadership experience and his coaching expertise to help create more leaders among the Introverts.

Johncey has 23 years of corporate leadership experience as COO, Director, Board of Directors. He did his BE in Computer Science and then did his Management Education from IIM Bangalore, Harvard Business School, ISB Hyderabad.