Being a boss, your goal is to have a team of productive, agile and motivated employees in the team. What if you have a composed team of introverts and extroverts? How will you manage these vastly different personalities? To an extent, you can manage extroverts but how will you draw out your introverted employees? What is the best way to manage them and take them to the level that meets your expectations?
The following details will explain tips for managing introverts and enhancing your leadership journey.
Table of Contents
How to manage introverts
Learning tips for managing introverts team is quite important because they easily do not communicate with their team and often skip a healthy discussion, which ultimately hampers their productivity and the company’s growth. Keep reading for tips!
Build relations with them
Since introverts are good listeners, it is quite easy to make relations with them. Talk to them, and ask about work progress and their ideas on the ongoing projects. It will help you to go through their mind and make them realise their value. Your ability to influence others is not a leadership personality, instead, team members follow leaders whom they believe, have empathy, interaction, and predictability. Therefore, get to know your introverted team members and help them to achieve their goals. This is one of the tips for managing introverts.
Be an attentive listener
People follow someone if they show interest, and listen to them attentively. If you are a good listener, they will be able to open up in front of you and boost their confidence to discuss new ideas & strategies that can lead the company to grow. And if you are also an introverted leader, you can still be an attentive and patient listener. So it is good to learn the tips for managing introverts.
Educate yourself
Extroverts and introverts are two different personalities and dramatically take different approaches to work and social presence. Thus understanding their preferences will help you to become a keen observer.
Promote privacy
Reports suggest that introverts need a private space to get work done. So it is better to arrange some private space in the office to let them work efficiently. Being a good leader, you can also help your team to develop a cultural practice where they can enjoy the activities of their choice without any interruption. For example, if they wear headphones to focus on work, you need to make sure that your extroverted team members do not discourage them.
Encourage them to speak
It is noted that typically in the six-person meeting, two people do more chit-chat than others. Understand it like this- the bigger the group, the bigger the problem. According to the experts, one of the tips for managing introverts is to make them feel comfortable enough to contribute. The solution to this problem is to allow & encourage them to speak. If they take the initiative, show interest in the conversation. Note that directly requesting them to give feedback might make them uncomfortable with the situation so it is better to tell them in advance that you would like them to contribute so they come prepared.
Things to remember with introverts
There is a lot to understand while working with introverts. Following are some other tips for managing introverts.
Do’s
- Set the meeting agenda in advance
- Occasionally ask for feedback
- Give them time to formulate their thoughts
- Allow them to work as they want
- Make them feel comfortable
- Listen to them attentively
- Give them space
Don’t
- Assume you already know everything about them
- Overload them with meetings
- Interrupt their space and work
- Jump into their personal life
Can introverts be leaders?
It is observed in the survey that the percentage of introverted leaders is even higher. Their strength of listening and analysing contributes to their leadership. Introverts tend to listen more attentively compared to extroverts and be receptive to suggestions, thus creating advantages for themselves and team members.
Here, one thing to remember is that each person has different characteristics, but it is essential to avoid stereotypes in the team for some good reasons.
Do you have introverts on the team? Or do you have the skills to become a team leader? Take some help from this post and help yourselves as an introvert.