My job means I have to get up in front of people, sometimes on stage, sometimes in a board room, and talk or facilitate.
I hide the nerves well and I can perform to a crowd.
But because I can, most people think I’m an extrovert.
But it’s far from the truth…
– I like to spend time on my own to recharge.
– I much prefer one on one conversations.
– I’m only really sociable with people I know.
I’m certainly not outgoing or enjoy being the centre of attention.
Our level of extroversion or introversion is a key part of our personality that explains our preferred way of engaging in social situations. It’s not purely based on our “outgoingness”.
It is focused on determining how we direct our energy – externally versus internally. This can have a huge bearing on our day-to-day life.
Neither introvert or extrovert is good or bad…
…it just is.
But if we can understand where we are on the scale or how we move between the scales we can better start to understand our own behaviours and responses.
This is key if you want to be part of a Future Fit organisation.
If you can identify whether your colleagues, manager, family, and friends are introverts or extroverts, it will allow you to treat these people more appropriately and also to interpret their behaviour.
In today’s Future Fit organisations we have to collaborate and share knowledge; quickly, seamlessly, and naturally, without the reliance on processes or systems to dictate that communication.
A future organisation is a living organism, not a machine that dictates that knowledge sharing and collaboration.
And we can’t do that effectively if we don’t understand our own behaviours and our impact on people around us.
That’s why our leadership development programme starts with “Leader of Self”, before we worry about leading others.
