The implications of the power struggle for the leader-employee relationship and labour relations became very clear, according to Grant. “At some level, the power struggle is finished, with the leader asserting authority and the employees saying: ‘We’re not going to work as hard on your behalf.’ The employees basically decided that: ‘Hey, these leaders are not receptive to good ideas …. We don’t really have a ton of respect for the leader. We don’t want this leader to be one of the top performers. We want to feel, at the end of the day, like our ideas are valued and our contributions are appreciated.’”
Interestingly, neither the introverted leaders nor the extroverted leaders showed higher productivity or profitability than the other. The difference, Grant and his researchers found, was in the pairing of leaders and employees.
“It shows that introverted and extroverted leadership styles can be equally effective, but with different groups of employees,” he says. “As a social scientist, this is appealing – people in organisations are sufficiently complex that you can rarely ever conclude that one style is always more effective than another … Our research provides insight into when each style is effective, as opposed to trying to test which one is better – which I think is the wrong question.”
Given these conclusions, why does the popular view persist that extroverts are better leaders across the board? The authors point to several possible reasons: one is that extroverts are often perceived as more effective because of a “halo effect”.
“This may occur because extroverted leaders match the prototypes of charismatic leaders that dominate both [Western and Eastern cultures] and are especially prevalent in business,” they write. One online survey of 1500 senior leaders earning at least six-figure salaries found that 65% actually saw introversion as a negative quality in terms of leadership.
Grant says the study has broad implications for corporate leaders who want to examine their own leadership styles as well as make changes in the lower management ranks. “We tend to assume that we need to be extremely enthusiastic, outgoing and assertive, and we try to bring employees on board with a lot of excitement, a clear vision and direction,” Grant says, “but there is real value in a leader being more reserved, quieter, in some cases silent, in order to create space for employees to enter the dialogue.”
He worked with the CEO of one Fortune 500 company who has a policy of silence for the first 15 minutes of meetings. He does not utter a single word, although he is an extrovert. “He feels that he has a tendency, once he gets excited about ideas, to run with them to the point where, at times, it leaves employees feeling like they weren’t included,” Grant says. “So he tries to combat that: ‘I want you guys to tell me whatever you’re thinking about – suggestions, feedback, questions – and the floor is yours.’ He listens quietly and takes notes.”
There are also lessons to be learned about giving employees authority and autonomy to make decisions on their own – “providing them with choice about what work they do, as well as how, when and where they complete it,” Grant notes. “One of the strongest predictors of proactivity is a sense of responsibility for the larger team or department or organisation. When employees feel like they are responsible for a larger unit, they are much more likely to broaden their roles beyond their specific individual job descriptions.”
So how can managers actually implement some of the lessons from the study? Grant suggests that once prospective team members have the required skills and expertise, leaders can explicitly look at personality in making the final selection – examining both the employees and the managers, figuring out which teams will work best together. “When I have extroverted leaders, if I have the opportunity I tend to invite in some of the less proactive employees who I think are more likely to want a clear, dominant vision from a leader and who are also more likely to get energised, to step a little bit out of their comfort zones.”
And how do you identify those employees who might fit better with an introverted leader at the helm? By looking and listening, Grant says. “Proactive employees, by definition, spend more of their time and energy taking initiative – whether that’s in terms of generating ideas, coming up with a new work process, staying late to help their colleagues or even going out of their way to seek feedback. You develop a reputation pretty quickly for that set of tendencies.”
Extroverted leaders also need to be careful to delegate responsibility to proactive employees, Grant suggests – putting such workers in areas where they have ideas for moving forward or want to take on larger responsibility. These leaders also should actively solicit feedback, positive and negative, and listen to it. Some companies employ 360-degree feedback surveys, but those can be harder to use in small groups. “Asking for advice from employees on how to change can kill two birds with one stone,” Grant says. “It allows the leader to actually learn, and it creates opportunities for employees to contribute right there and then.”
