Are You A Introvert or An Extravert At Work?

During two different years, I made this request to more than 200 MBA students at Wharton. In 2011, only a few students raised their hands. In 2013, more than a third of the hands shot up.

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Had we accepted a more introverted cohort of students? No. When they filled out confidential surveys, the two classes were identical: on a 1-5 scale, where 1 is extremely introverted and 5 is extremely extraverted, the average was 3.34 in 2011 and 3.39 in 2013.

We had the same number of introverts; students were just more willing to admit it publicly now. When I asked what made them comfortable stepping out of the shadows, the most common answer was Susan Cain’s life-altering book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. Before reading it, they saw introversion as a liability. As actress Emma Watson (aka Hermione Granger), “If you’re anything other than an extravert you’re made to think there’s something wrong with you.”

Thanks to Susan Cain’s sensational writing, the stigma of introversion is evaporating. People recognize that it comes with strengths, not only vulnerabilities. This awareness is not unique to students; I’ve seen the same trend with senior executives. Leaders are coming out of the introvert closet in droves.

However, I’ve noticed that despite growing social and professional acceptance, introverts are still wildly misunderstood. People may be more open about being introverts, but they cling to assumptions that don’t stand up to the test of rigorous evidence. It’s time to debunk five myths:

Myth 1: “Extraverts get energy from social interaction, whereas introverts get energy from privately reflecting on their thoughts and feelings.”

• Introverts spend about the same amount of time with other people as extraverts, and enjoy it just as much.
• When people are randomly assigned to act extraverted or introverted, extraverts and introverts alike experience greater energy when they talk more.
• Extraverts report the most energy when they’re being talkative and assertive—but so do introverts. This is true when people rate their energy during 45 different hours over two weeks or weekly for ten weeks: the energizing hours and weeks for all of us are those that involve more active social interaction, regardless of whether we’re working, reading, eating, or partying.

This shouldn’t be a surprise: social interaction is the spice of life, in part because it satisfies the fundamental human need to belong. So if it’s not in where you get your energy, what’s the difference between introverts and extraverts?

It’s your sensitivity to stimulation. If you’re an introvert, you’re more prone to being overstimulated by intense or prolonged social interaction—and at that point, reflecting on your thoughts and feelings can help you recharge. But introversion-extraversion is about more than just social interaction. Extraverts crave stimulating activities like skydiving and stimulating beverages sold at Starbucks. Introverts are more likely to retreat to a quiet place, but they’re very happy to bring someone else with them.

Except for a raging extravert, because let’s be honest, that will be a drain.

Myth 2: Introverts are plagued by public speaking anxiety

In Quiet, Susan Cain described the terror that she faced as an introvert preparing for a speech: “It’s 2:00am, I can’t sleep, and I want to die. I’m not normally the suicidal type, but this is the night before a big speech, and my mind races with horrifying what-if propositions. What if my mouth dries up and I can’t get any words out? What if I bore the audience? What if I throw up on stage?”

We assume that the gift of gab belongs to extraverts, and introverts are doomed to be nervous on stage, but we’re wrong. In one study, people rated how anxious they would feel in various public speaking situations. Introverts did anticipate more anxiety than extraverts, but 84% of public speaking anxiety was completely unrelated to introversion-extraversion. Bigger factors were whether they tended to be anxious people in general, thought the audience was kind versus hostile, and feared they would bomb the particular speech.

This mirrors Susan Cain’s experience. She tells me that after her year of speaking dangerously, which included a top-viewed TED talk, she underwent a transformation: “Thanks to the miracle of desensitization (exposing yourself in small doses to the thing you fear) and to the great joy of speaking on a subject I’m passionate about, ironically I now have a career as… a public speaker.” She now travels the world giving talks to businesses and schools about “how they can harness the talents of the introverted half of their populations. Three years ago this seemed about as likely as taking up a new career as an astronaut.”

“Speaking is not an act of extraversion,” observes Malcolm Gladwell, another introverted writer who spends plenty of time on stage. “It has nothing to do with extraversion. It’s a performance, and many performers are hugely introverted.”

Myth 3: Extraverts are better leaders than introverts

Studies show that 96% of leaders and managers report being extraverted. And in a poll, 65% of senior executives said it was a liability for leaders to be introverted, and only 6% saw introversion as an advantage. Extraverts must be better leaders!

Not so fast. Extraverts are more likely to be attracted to and selected for leadership roles, but they’re not better leaders than introverts. When I tracked leadership effectiveness with Francesca Gino and Dave Hofmann, we found that extraverts and introverts were equally successful overall—and excelled with different types of employees. When employees were passive, looking for direction from above, units led by extraverts had 16% higher profits. But when employees were proactive, voicing suggestions and improving work processes, units led by extraverts had 14% lower profits. Extraverts had the enthusiasm and assertiveness to get the best out of passive followers, but they hogged the spotlight in ways that stifled the initiative of proactive followers, leaving them discouraged and missing out on their ideas.

Introverted leaders thrive by validating initiative and listening carefully to suggestions from below. Doug Conant, the former CEO of Campbell’s Soup, is an introvert who has been celebrated for writing more than 30,000 personalized thank you notes to his employees. It’s hard to imagine an extravert doing that. General Charles Krulak, the former commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, introduced himself to me as an introvert too. When Krulak took over as the CEO of a bank, he sat down with his vice presidents and said, “Everyone around this table has forgotten more about banking than I know. And because of that, I’m going to need and seek your advice. I may not always agree with you, and if I don’t, I’ll let you know why. If you get to a point where you don’t feel you can come to me, I’ve failed as a leader.”

Myth 4: Extraverts are better networkers than introverts

Think of the best networker you know, and chances are that you’ll conjure up an extravert. It’s easier to schmooze when you’re outgoing and gregarious, and I’ve seen introverts cringe when Keith Ferrazzi challenges them to step out of their comfort zone and Never Eat Alone.

Against this backdrop, when doing research for my first book, I was stunned to learn thatFortune’s best networker was an introverted computer engineer. It’s true that extraverts havelarger networks—and more Facebook friends. It turns out, though, that great networking isn’t about quantity. In the job search, research shows that extraverts engage in more intense networking, but this doesn’t translate into more jobs.

Getting a job is about the quality and diversity of the relationships you build, not how the number of people you contact or the number of times you reach out to them. If you stereotype extraverts as charismatic and introverts as aloof, think again. Extraverts do feel more positive emotions than introverts, but they don’t always cause other people to feel those same positive emotions. Studies of workgroups show that extraverts actually elicit more negative emotions in others, have slightly more difficult relationships with teammates, and start out with higher status but lose it over time. Colleagues report that extraverts are more likely to be overbearing than introverts (it’s hard to annoy people if they don’t even notice that you exist) and engage in boisterous behaviors that create high initial expectations but fail to deliver with corresponding contributions.

Plus, it’s not uncommon for introverts to be just as comfortable networking as extraverts. This is because shyness is a separate trait: as the psychologist Philip Zimbardo writes, it’s the tendency to be hesitant and self-conscious when dealing with people who are “emotionally threatening.” There are many shy extraverts: they’re uncomfortable interacting with strangers, but love going to rock concerts. And plenty of introverts are sociable: they’ll strike up a conversation with random people at parties, but get easily overwhelmed by bright lights and loud noises.

Myth 5: Extraverts are better salespeople than introverts

After debunking the first four myths, I like to pose a challenge. If extraverts aren’t better at leading or networking, can you identify a domain where they do have a performance advantage? The most common answer was sales: salespeople need to be enthusiastic, gregarious, and assertive. Yet when I looked at the evidence, the average correlation between extraversion and sales performance was a whopping zero.

Why? Dan Pink gave me the answer: we forgot to consider the ambiverts in the middle of the spectrum. Most people are ambiverted rather than introverted or extraverted: they’re quiet in some situations and loud in others, and alternate between seeking the spotlight and staying backstage. Sure enough, when I studied sales revenue, ambiverts brought in more sales revenue than introverts or extraverts. Whereas extraverts are prone to dominating the conversation and coming on too strong, and introverts are sometimes too reserved and reluctant to pitch, ambiverts have the flexibility to adapt to the demands of the situation. So if you’re an introvert or an extravert, and you want to become better at persuading and influencing, follow the advice in Dan Pink’s fascinating book To Sell Is Human: “Get in touch with your inner ambivert.”

Article by: Adam Grant

On Behalf Of  Federal Financial Group LLC

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Leaders Like This!

Good leaders look good on paper. Great leaders look great in person; their actions show their value.

Yet some leaders go even farther. And they’re even more successful not because of what you see them do… but because of what you don’t see them do.

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Where the best leaders are concerned, what you see is far from all you get:

1. They forgive… and they forget.

When an employee makes a mistake — especially a major mistake — it’s easy to forever judge that employee by that one mistake. (I know. I’ve done it.)

But one mistake, or one weakness, is just one part of a whole person. A rare few people are able to step back, set aside that mistake, and continue to see the whole employee. They are also able to forget that mistake, because they know that viewing any employee through the lens of one incident may forever impact how they treat that employee.

And they know the employee will be able to tell.

To forgive may be divine, but to forget can be even more divine.

2. They transform company goals into each employee’s personal goal.

Good leaders inspire their employees to achieve company goals.

Truly great leaders make their employees feel that what they do will benefit them as much as it does the company. After all, whom will you work harder for: a company, or yourself?

Whether they get professional development, an opportunity to grow, a chance to shine, a chance to flex their favorite business muscles, employees who feel a sense of personal purpose almost always outperform employees who feel a sense of company purpose.

And they have a lot more fun doing it.

Truly outstanding leaders know their employees well enough to tap the personal, not just the professional.

3. They look past the action to find the emotion and motivation.

Sometimes employees make mistakes. Sometimes they simply do the wrong thing. Sometimes they take over projects or roles without approval or justification. Sometimes they jockey for position, play political games, or ignore company objectives in pursuit of personal goals.

When that happens, it’s easy to assume that employee doesn’t listen or doesn’t care. But almost always there’s a deeper reason: he feel stifled, he may feel he has no control, he may feel marginalized or frustrated — or maybe he is just trying to find a sense of meaning in his work that pay rates and titles can never provide.

Effective bosses deal with actions. Great bosses search for the underlying issues that, when overcome, lead to much bigger changes for the better.

4. They support without seeking credit.

A customer is upset. A vendor feels shortchanged. A coworker is frustrated. Whatever the issue, good bosses support their employees. They know that to do otherwise undermines the employee’s credibility and possibly authority.

Afterword, most bosses will say to the employee, “Listen, I took up for you, but…”

Great leaders don’t say anything. They feel supporting their employees — even if that shines a negative spotlight on themselves — is the right thing to do and is therefore unremarkable.

Even though we all know it isn’t.

5. They make fewer public decisions.

When a decision needs to be made, most of the time the best person to make that decision isn’t the boss. Most of the time the best person is the employee closest to the issue.

Decisiveness is a quality of a good leader. Great leaders are sometimes decisive in a different way: they decide they aren’t the right person to make the decision and then decide who is the right person.

They do that not because they want to avoid making those decisions… but because they know they shouldn’t make those decisions.

6. They don’t see control as a reward.

Many people desperately want to be in charge so they can finally call the shots. A truly great leader doesn’t care about control and as a result isn’t seen to exercise control.

Even though she does – just in the best possible way.

7. They allow employees to learn their own lessons.

It’s easy for a leader to debrief an employee and turn a teachable moment into a lesson learned. It’s a lot harder to let employees learn their own lessons, even though the lessons we learn on our own are the lessons we remember forever.

Great leaders don’t scold or dictate; they work together with an employee to figure out what happened and what to do to correct the mistake. They help find a better way, not a disciplinary way.

Why? Great employees don’t need to be scolded or reprimanded. They know what they did wrong.

Sometimes staying silent is the best way to ensure they remember.

8. They let employees have the ideas.

Years ago I worked in manufacturing and my boss sent me to help move the production control offices. It was basically manual labor, but for two days it put me in a position to watch and hear and learn a lot about how the plant’s production flow was controlled.

I found it fascinating and later I asked my boss if I could be trained to fill in as a production clerk. Those two days sparked a lifelong interest in productivity and process improvement.

Years later he admitted he sent me to help move their furniture. “I knew you’d go in there with your eyes wide open,” he said, “and once you got a little taste I knew you’d love it.”

Great leaders see the potential in their employees and find ways to let them have the ideas… even though the outcome may have been what they intended all along.

9. They always go home feeling they could have done better.

Leadership is like a smorgasbord of insecurity. Leaders worry about employees and customers and results. You name it – they worry about it.

That’s why great leaders go home every day feeling they could have done things a little better or smarter. They wish they had treated employees with a little more sensitivity or empathy.

Most importantly, they always go home feeling they could have done more to fulfill the trust their employees place in them.

And that’s why, although you can’t see it, when they walk in the door every day… truly great leaders make a silent commitment to do their jobs even better than they did yesterday.

And then they do.

Article by: Jeff Haden

On Behalf Of  Federal Financial Group LLC

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Leadership Keys

By Josh Rice, Public Relations Specialist with Federal Financial Group LLC

I came across a couple good ideas from Steve Tappin from Xinfu and added some input from my experiences.

Driven By numbers!

More and more you see these days leaders that are solely driven by numbers. Top leaders want to do something great, they aren’t solely driven by numbers.

“My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products. Everything else was secondary. Sure, it was great to make a profit, because that was what allowed you to make great products. But the products, not the profits were the motivation,” said Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple.

You can see a big difference between the leaders that you run across that are number driven and the ones that are bigger picture or goal driven.  Don’t get me wrong you have to be motivated by numbers, numbers are important. But those leaders that have accomplished a lot, were motivated by the bigger picture.

Need for Speed

“Failing slowly is deadly. Failing quickly is actually not that bad,” said Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE.

If you are going to do anything, put a hundred percent into it. You would rather know that you failed real quickly, than wasting months trying to decide if something was worth doing. Being prepared for what ever happens will help you handle changes that happen in the market. Acting fast in certain situations can really save you time and energy in your career.

Crazy 8

Have you ever seen a racetrack like the one above? Essentially its just two large circles put together and all you are really doing is going in circles when you are on this racetrack. Leaders can make the same mistakes. Getting stuck on the day-to-day things, trying to take on to much for work and not trusting the people you delegated responsibilities to. Sometimes you have to make difficult decisions and get rid of difficult people you don’t trust. You should only spend 30% of your time on the day–to–day stuff. If you are able to share your mindset, ambition and pass on what you expect, you will have less problems in the future.

Culture

As a leader you dictate what the culture of your company or branch you are in charge of will be.  You have the ability to make people excited to come to work or just put in their 8-hour shifts.

“To me, leadership is primarily about raising the aspirations of people, making people say that they will walk on water. A plausible impossibility is better than a convincing possibility,” said Narayana Murthy.

These are just a couple things I found that I really liked. Great leaders can change a company. Even if you are not a leader in your company these tps can help you set your sites on that mindset when you are a leader.

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Fail, Fail Fast!

Michael Jordan

By Josh Rice, Public Relations Specialist with Federal Financial Group LLC

I came across a couple good ideas from Dyan Williams from Lifehacker company and added some input from my experiences.

There is a saying that I really love. Fail early, fail fast, fail often! People look at failure as a bad thing. But one thing that I have noticed when you look at successful people is that they fail all the time. The only reason why you never hear about it is because in the end they succeeded after all that failing. You only heard about the result and not about the whole process. It’s just a game of persistence.

“Thomas Edison failed over 6,000 times before perfecting the first electrical light bulb. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team and missed over 9,000 shots in his career. Oprah Winfrey was fired from an early anchor spot and told she was unfit for TV,” said Dyan Williams writer for Lifehacker.

JK Rowley said “It’s impossible to live without failing at something, unless you lived so cautiously that you might as well not lived at all. In which case you failed by default.”

If you want to try and achieve anything in this life, failure will shape you for the better. It will make you want to succeed and rise above what is stopping you. Don’t look at failure as a bad thing, it’s just one step closer to what you are trying to achieve.

Instead of seeing failure as a lack of success, look at it as the starting point and part of the process. If we condition our brain to start thinking like this, then we will see more success and worry less when we do fail.

Like any industry that you try to break into, it’s going to be hard! But the rewards are there.  Federal Financial Group LLC is working hard to reach every goal, check out what we have been up to!

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Elevator Pitch

By Josh Rice, Public Relations Specialist with Federal Financial Group LLC

I came across a couple good ideas from Marla Tabaka on Inc.com and added some input from my experiences.
I think sales in general have gone through a huge change in the last ten years. Sales people have had to change the way they do things to get the sale. People have become very sensitive to commercials or even the very hint of being a sale pitch. As soon as they hear any of that kind of stuff, people start tuning it out. A lot of that is because of technology and how people communicate these days. So the real question is: “Are some of the old sales techniques still good for this new changing world we are in?” I really think the old techniques work, but something’s need to be changed because of the changing world we live in. For sales people and aspiring leaders the elevator pitch can be very effective if it is done right. Here are a couple ideas on how to change your elevator pitch.
Peak Their Interest-
When someone asks you, “What do you do?” don’t give them the answer right away. Peak their interest! Give them something confusing that will make them question what you do. This will keep the conversation going and make you look intriguing. So a Realtor would say “I make sure you have a warm place by the fire.” Restaurant owner would say “I feed America.” This will make the person talking to you instantly stop and start think about what you said.
Keep That Pause-
It’s important to remember to wait for the other person to think about what you said. They will be confused at this point and then that’s when they start asking questions. When they do start asking questions they have invested in the conversation and this is where they want to know more detail.
Tempt Them Even More-
After you did a good job peaking their interest, don’t sell them just yet. Ease into the next part by explaining to them how you do what you do, but don’t give away everything at this point. You have to keep them interested.
Serve-
If you have done this right, you should have the other person in a conversation. But always keep in mind what you can do for them instead of your own needs like selling them a product. If you do this then you will have a much great outcome than the standard elevator pitch.

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Motivation to lead! (7 min. Video)

By Josh Rice, Public Relations Specialist with Federal Financial Group LLC

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Talking Points of Great Leaders

By Josh Rice, Public Relations Specialist with Federal Financial Group LLC

Communication in business can make or break your career. There are a couple things that all good leaders have in common when interacting with colleagues, employees and even friends. I have taken some ideas from an article from Inc., many communications classes in college, and watching some great leaders here at Federal Financial Group LLC.  Here are a couple things you should say continually to keep you standing out and being a trusted leader:

“Here’s what I’m thinking”

Whenever a boss says this first, I get pretty excited. It’s a really friendly way of telling someone your opinion or what you need them to do. But the key difference is that they are open for improvement and value your opinion. So when you use this phrase it makes people feel like they are on a team and working with you rather than being told what to do.

Transparency

In everything you do be as transparent as you can be. If you do this people are more likely to trust you and be more willing to work harder for you because they know what you stand for. Even if you think it’s bad and you don’t want to share it with people, you will be better off telling the truth so that people know that you’re human and where you intentions are going. Time and time again I see this in our leaders here. They love to keep us updated on everything that is going on and be as transparent as possible. This makes me want to work harder for them and motivated to do the same thing for them.

Apologizing

We are all human, so that means we will make mistakes. If you don’t, that raises more eyebrows to me. Whenever I have had a boss apologize to me for something, it has really meant a lot and I come out of it really respecting the person more. You are more likely to remember a boss down the road for his character that has apologized to you than one that was always right.

“Can you show me?”

“When you ask to be taught or shown, several things happen: You implicitly show you respect the person giving the advice; you show you trust his or her experience, skill, and insight; and you get to better assess the value of the advice”, said Jeff Haden, a writer for Inc.com.

I really like that last comment. If we could apply all four tactics when we are leading people or communicating with people, we will become those leaders that we have looked up to for so long.

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