For a post for the DEI group:
Recently a former BCom student, Gabriele Hertshorne-Mehl, and I had a book come out, We Are All Ambiverts Now: Introverts, Ambiverts, Extroverts in the C Suite from Taylor & Francis in London. A central argument is that in order to be an effective senior leader, you need to act like an introvert at times, be quiet and listen, and other times get up and thank Susan for 35 years of service to our organization and lead the applause, that is something more natural to most extroverts, but remain true to your authentic self. So only on occasion to act like the other, for most of us it can be exhausting.
The book is based on +750 interviews with CEOs and other senior leaders. For over a dozen years I have had a weekly hour-long national radio show, the CEO Series, a one-on-one with a senior leader and a CEO Insights class for MBAs at McGill with 3 CEO guests each class.
Ambivert is a new term to many people, it was invented in the US in the 1920s by a psychologist and almost entirely disappeared from the literature since. When I first heard about it, I assumed that it would be 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 of leaders would be an introvert, ambivert or extrovert, there was three categories. However, based on these interviews we concluded that is more like about 40% of senior leaders are introverts, 40% extroverts and only 20% genuine ambiverts.
Introverts have been an important part of the DEI conversation; we would like to add extroverts and ambiverts to the diversity discussion. It is a more subtle thing, you can't look at someone and know which they are. You may be able to by watching their behaviour over time. But we suggest that we all can act a bit different than our hard wiring as an extrovert or introvert or ambivert. My wife is a Grade 2 teacher. When as a parent you visit the classroom, we generally don't know your name or use it, you are simply Marie-Eve's Dad. If that upsets you, the other parents will say to themselves, "you are taller, make more money, have more education, have travelled more, than your child, but in this context they are more important than you, calm down!"
Now the average person is not a senior leader, and often thankful for that. But if you are a CEO, Minister in the Government, etc, you need to sometimes, on occasion, not all the time (have I been clear it is only a few times a week) you need to act like the other in order to be effective but be your authentic, true to yourself self the considerable majority of the time. Now after setting here writing, I need to take an extrovert break.
One last thought, the literature talks often about introvert breaks. But entirely overlooked extroverts breaks, typical! So, I wrote a piece for the Wharton Leaders Digest on Extrovert Breaks. The central construct of introversion and extroversion is our response to stimulation, after too much introverts tip over and take introverts breaks to recharge. Extroverts do the same but for the opposite reason, if we go without stimulation to long, we really truly need some stimulation and seek it out. For example, after sitting my office for an hour and half writing about introverts and extroverts, I can't take it anymore! And need stimulation so go down the hall to the student lounge and talk with students to give me the stimulation I need. Students often ask me, "is this an extrovert break?" They have heard me give a talk on Ambiverts.
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Associate Professor, Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University
Associate, Green Templeton College, Oxford University
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CEO Series National radio show on Bell Media - + 750 CEOs interviewed
Regular contributor Forbes.com
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Latest book, We Are All Ambiverts Now order it at Amazon.com
