Hey Reader,
A few years ago I was asked to coach an introverted executive at a large international organisation.
She’d been put forward by her line manager.
The brief was straightforward: she lacked presence.
Specifically, executive presence. This is the kind of feedback I see often, and it never comes with a definition. Instead, it leaves you trying to fix something nobody can describe.
When I started working with her, I found something interesting:
She was highly respected – by her team, by internal stakeholders and by the external partners she worked with regularly. Her presentations received strong feedback. Her KPIs were being met. Her deliverables were on time.
A few months prior, she’d been promoted into the role on the strength of her previous performance but she hadn’t yet had the time to demonstrate herself fully.
On every measurable indicator, she was doing well.
Her line manager was an extroverted man. And the more I worked with her, the clearer it became that his assessment had no factual basis.
What it had was a reference point – himself. Loud. Fast. Takes up space. Performs confidence in real time.
She listened. She prepared thoroughly, built trust slowly and held it for a long time. She thought before she spoke and what she said was worth hearing.
The coaching brief should have been his.
The Science
Research by Spark and O’Connor (2021) found that extroverted behaviour in group settings is directly linked to being perceived as a leader, regardless of actual leadership quality.
People who speak more, move more, and claim more space are rated as more capable – even when the content of what they say is equivalent.
Her manager wasn’t uniquely biased; he was running on a cognitive shortcut that most people run on without realising it. Extrovert signals get processed as leadership signals. The room reads volume as capability and silence as absence.
That’s the system introverted leaders are being assessed against every day.
How many people are sitting exactly where she was – performing well, respected by the people who actually work with them – and still being told something is missing?
Whilst we don’t have an exact figure, I know from my work this is far from an isolated example and the answer is definitely too many.
If you’re one of them, async coaching is where we find the language for what’s actually there, and how to make it legible to the people who’ve been missing it.
Without changing who you are.
Find out more
In your corner always,
Sam 💛
| | Sam SheppardIntrovert StrategistNeuroscience-backed insights for introverts who are tired of adapting to a world that wasn’t built for them. |
