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Myth: extroverts often make best leaders
December 18, 2010, Saturday
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CONVENTIONAL wisdom tells us that leaders are the men and women who stand up, speak out, give orders, make plans and are generally the most dominant, outgoing people in a group.
But that is not always the case, according to new research on leadership and group dynamics from Wharton management professor Adam Grant and two colleagues, who challenge the assumption that the most effective leaders are extroverts.
In fact, introverted leaders can be more effective than extroverts in certain circumstances.
The determining factor is who leaders are managing, according to Grant and co-authors Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School and David Hofmann of the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School.
Extroverted leadership involves commanding the center of attention: being outgoing, assertive, bold, talkative and dominant. This offers the advantages of providing a clear authority structure and direction.
However, pairing extroverted leaders with employees who take initiative and speak out can lead to friction, while pairing the same group of employees with an introverted leader can be a pathway to success, the researchers note.
This has implications for leaders and managers at all levels who want to improve their own leadership styles.
"If you look at existing leadership research, extroversion stands out as the most consistent and robust predictor of who becomes a leader and who is rated an effective leader," Grant says. "But I thought this was incomplete. It tells us little about the situations in which introverted leaders can be more effective than extroverted leaders."
So he and his fellow researchers began looking at the issue through the lens of a business that could easily track productivity and team effectiveness - pizza delivery franchises.
The researchers obtained data from a national pizza delivery company.
They sent questionnaires to 130 stores and received complete responses from 57; the responses included 57 store leaders and 374 employees.
What Grant and his colleagues found was a simple inverse relationship: When employees are proactive, introverted managers lead them to earn higher profits. When employees are not proactive, extroverted managers lead them to higher profits.
Pairing an extroverted leader with a proactive team, he says, can hurt, not just hinder, the company's effectiveness.
In fact, the personality conflicts can lead to a power struggle within an organization, openly pitting leaders against employees.
Art of pairing
This is especially true in companies or groups with a flat hierarchy - for example, if the leaders were recently promoted from the peer level, or if a new leader's competence and skills are not yet established.
Such situations would "be much more likely to lead employees to challenge, and leaders to feel threatened," a situation known as "status uncertainty," according to Grant.
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.
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 1,500 senior leaders earning at least six-figure salaries found that 65 percent actually saw introversion as a negative quality in terms of leadership.
(Reproduced with permission from Knowledge@Wharton, http://www.knowledgeatwharton.com.cn. All rights reserved. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.)
But that is not always the case, according to new research on leadership and group dynamics from Wharton management professor Adam Grant and two colleagues, who challenge the assumption that the most effective leaders are extroverts.
In fact, introverted leaders can be more effective than extroverts in certain circumstances.
The determining factor is who leaders are managing, according to Grant and co-authors Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School and David Hofmann of the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School.
Extroverted leadership involves commanding the center of attention: being outgoing, assertive, bold, talkative and dominant. This offers the advantages of providing a clear authority structure and direction.
However, pairing extroverted leaders with employees who take initiative and speak out can lead to friction, while pairing the same group of employees with an introverted leader can be a pathway to success, the researchers note.
This has implications for leaders and managers at all levels who want to improve their own leadership styles.
"If you look at existing leadership research, extroversion stands out as the most consistent and robust predictor of who becomes a leader and who is rated an effective leader," Grant says. "But I thought this was incomplete. It tells us little about the situations in which introverted leaders can be more effective than extroverted leaders."
So he and his fellow researchers began looking at the issue through the lens of a business that could easily track productivity and team effectiveness - pizza delivery franchises.
The researchers obtained data from a national pizza delivery company.
They sent questionnaires to 130 stores and received complete responses from 57; the responses included 57 store leaders and 374 employees.
What Grant and his colleagues found was a simple inverse relationship: When employees are proactive, introverted managers lead them to earn higher profits. When employees are not proactive, extroverted managers lead them to higher profits.
Pairing an extroverted leader with a proactive team, he says, can hurt, not just hinder, the company's effectiveness.
In fact, the personality conflicts can lead to a power struggle within an organization, openly pitting leaders against employees.
Art of pairing
This is especially true in companies or groups with a flat hierarchy - for example, if the leaders were recently promoted from the peer level, or if a new leader's competence and skills are not yet established.
Such situations would "be much more likely to lead employees to challenge, and leaders to feel threatened," a situation known as "status uncertainty," according to Grant.
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.
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 1,500 senior leaders earning at least six-figure salaries found that 65 percent actually saw introversion as a negative quality in terms of leadership.
(Reproduced with permission from Knowledge@Wharton, http://www.knowledgeatwharton.com.cn. All rights reserved. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.)
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