When you hear the word 'leader' you probably have a certain image in your head. But there is a difference between who we see as a leader and who is actually effective as a leader.
The American Ralph Melvin Stogdill researched personality and who is perceived as a leader. He looked for relationships between personality traits and whether or not someone was seen as a leader. Stogdill found that dominance, extroversion, sociability, ambition, responsibility, integrity, self-confidence, emotional stability, diplomacy, and being cooperative are positively related to emerging leadership.
These characteristics can be linked to the Big Five dimensions that say something about personality: dominance, extraversion and sociability are linked to the extraversion dimension, while responsibility, ambition and integrity are linked to conscientiousness. Self-confidence and emotional stability correspond to neuroticism, while diplomacy and cooperation are related to kindness.
According to two other American researchers, David A. Kenny en Stephen J. Zaccaro, personality is at least half a determining factor in whether or not you are seen as a leader. Their research also shows a link between high scores on extraversion, friendliness and emotional stability on the one hand and being perceived by others as a leader on the other. After all, leadership also seems to be related to how much a person speaks. Whoever speaks the most is most likely to be seen as the leader (Bass, 1949)
Effectiveness
All these studies show what qualities we generally associate with leadership. However, this says nothing about the actual performance. If we zoom in on that, you will see that this is often highly situation-dependent.
Clayton Foushee en Robert Helmreich studied the flight crews of several airlines. They found that team performance (number and severity of mistakes) is related to the pilot's personality. When a pilot is warm, friendly, confident and able to handle pressure (high scores on friendliness and emotional stability), the crew makes fewer mistakes. But if a pilot is arrogant, hostile, boastful, selfish, passive aggressive or dictatorial, many more mistakes are made. A more dominant, extroverted style is therefore not so appropriate here.
Adam Grant, Francesca Gino en David Hofmann found that introverted leaders are most effective when they lead proactive teams. They are used to giving a lot of space to others. Directive leadership, which is generally associated with a more extroverted leadership style, only increases the proactivity of employees who are highly satisfied with their leaders. Servant leadership, which is more closely linked to the introverted style of leadership, is more effective in situations where teams are not as satisfied with their leaders.
Finally, transformational leadership is very important for innovation within teams. In order for a team to come up with new ideas and products, team members need space. A transformational leader does not feel attacked by the ideas of others, but helps them realize them. In this case, the leader is more servant than dominant, which aligns with the more introverted style of leadership.
As far as leadership is concerned, you see that it is important to take the environment and the end goal into account when deciding who should lead a particular team. It is important to let go of the standard picture of 'the ideal leader' and to look at what works. This is how both the extroverted and introverted leader come into their own.
Do you consider yourself an introverted leader? Then I can heartily recommend my book Introverted Leadership.
