Professionals will look to a compassionate leader to guide them, teach them, mentor them, and help them to flourish in their field and position. Because of all these factors, a leader is often thought to be a highly confident person and a person who can engage and communicate with the very best. With these traits in mind, it’s easy to see how extroversion and compassionate leadership go hand in hand. At Technalink we know that it’s not just extroverts that make great leaders, and introverts have plenty of unique qualities as well to make them stand out from the crowd.
While introverted professionals may not exude the same ease in group situations as highly extroverted professionals, they will often still possess the same confidence, knowledge, and empathy as their more social friendly counterparts. Essentially, the only difference between an extrovert and an introvert is that extroverts recharge their energy reserves by interacting with and being in the presence of others, bouncing ideas and exploring a situation through all eyes. Introverts, however, have a different focus, and recharge and innovate better through spending their time in their own mind.
First and foremost, an introverted compassionate leader will feel more motivated through productivity instead of recognition and personal ambition. According to a study by Scientific American, introverts will often feel uncomfortable climbing a professional social ladder and gaining public recognition for their achievements, instead of achieving reward from different stimuli. The feeling of maintaining team productivity and moving along to a goal will provide a more satisfying reward emotionally, making introverted leaders an excellent choice for compassionate leadership that always considers the “we” over the “I”.
While communication may not often be thought of as the strong suit of introverted compassionate leadership, this is really an unfair belief. Introverts tend to, rather than making many connections, focus on making authentic and real connections between themselves and their team. This skill to build one on one connections really opens safe and effective communication lines between leadership and the team, thereby fostering better communication and deeper paths of empathy.
While extroverted traits are often thought of synonymously with traits of great compassionate leadership, introverted traits provide their own unique advantages as well. As a matter of fact, according to research published in Medical Daily, introverts are thought to have a thicker grey matter in the prefrontal cortex, which makes them natural problem solvers and innovators with easy abstract thinking skills. In terms of leadership, either personality style can make a perfect compassionate leadership fit in the right role and industry.
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