Think of your last team meeting. Who talked first? Who talked most? And, a harder question, were they the person with the best information?
If you’re a quiet manager, you may already know where this is going. You’ve sat in the room while someone with half the facts and twice the volume took the discussion where they wanted. You’ve also, if you’re honest, wondered whether that’s just what leadership looks like, and whether you’ve got the wrong temperament for the job.
Not necessarily, and the research backs you up. It also says something less comfortable: that extraverts really are more likely to get picked as leaders, and that the reasons are mostly about how groups behave rather than who’s best. That matters whether you’re quiet yourself or you’re the person deciding who gets promoted.
is roughly how much of the difference between good and bad leaders extraversion explains. The link is real, but about nine tenths is down to other things. Judge et al., 2002.
The quiet one in the dugout
Gareth Southgate
In his 2020 book, the former England manager writes, “By nature, I am an introvert.” A 2024 feature from Crystal Palace, where he played, quotes a former club captain who remembers a young player who listened to the senior pros. Many people would say that’s the wrong temperament for a job with a press room at one end and a dressing room at the other.
We can’t credit England’s results to his personality, and plenty of loud managers win things too. The narrower point is the useful one: quiet turned out to be no barrier to the job.
A rule we use at Ducora: we only call a famous person an introvert if they’ve said so themselves. That rules out a lot of the lists you’ll have seen. Abraham Lincoln, Satya Nadella and Tim Cook turn up on plenty of them, and we couldn’t find a reliable source for any of the three. Southgate wrote it down in his own book, which is why he’s here.
What the research actually says
Skip the pop psychology. Here’s what holds up, in plain English.
Extraverts are more likely to get picked as leaders. Extraversion is the personality trait most consistently linked to leadership (Judge et al., 2002), and a confident, extraverted presentation gets people picked (Grijalva et al., 2015). Don’t fight it. Know it’s there.
But it explains only about a tenth of who leads well. For being effective, rather than being picked, estimates of the link range from small to moderate depending on the review (Hoffman et al., 2011; Wilmot et al., 2019). Most of what makes a leader is something else.
The edge comes from the assertive side, not the sociable side. Assertiveness and energy carry the leadership link. Being sociable adds little, and in one meta-analysis the warm, chatty side was actually negatively related to leading effectively (Do and Minbashian, 2014; Wilmot et al., 2019). Quiet people can be assertive. Most of the good ones are.
Groups reward airtime. In small groups, how much someone spoke predicted who got picked as leader, even after accounting for intelligence, personality and gender (MacLaren et al., 2020). People who act dominant get rated as more competent than they are (Anderson and Kilduff, 2009). And narcissists get picked as leaders on the strength of an extraverted presentation without being any more effective once they’re in the job (Grijalva et al., 2015). The halo effect at work: one loud, visible trait colours our judgement of everything else.
Quiet people may opt themselves out. Before a group task, introverts expected to feel worse than extraverts did, and that gloomy forecast accounted for their lower chance of emerging as leader (Spark et al., 2018). That’s one small correlational study, but it’s a useful thought: some of the gap may be a prediction, not a reality.
Faking it costs. In a randomised trial, people who acted extraverted for a week mostly felt better. The more introverted among them gained less, and reported more tiredness and lower authenticity (Jacques-Hamilton et al., 2019). That doesn’t say “never push yourself”. It says a full-time act has a bill.
Three traps for quiet managers
1. You get misread. Quiet can look like cold, distant or checked out. Your team fills the gap with a story, and it’s rarely generous.
2. You opt yourself out. You skip the meeting where the decision’s made because you’d rather think about it first. The decision goes ahead without you.
3. You perform all day. You try to be the big, bright manager you think the job requires, and by Thursday you’ve got nothing left for the part of the job you’re actually good at.
Each of those has a fix, and none of them is “be more extraverted”.
Tell your team how you work
Douglas Conant
The former Campbell Soup chief executive has written that he needs “quiet time to be alone with my thoughts and recharge”, and says he told colleagues about his nature rather than leaving them to guess. (HBR blog, 2011, as quoted by Korn Ferry.)
We have his account, not a controlled study. But the move is cheap and obvious. Tell people how you work, and they stop making up stories about why you’ve gone quiet.
This is the first move, because it fixes trap one. Write a short note for your team: how you like to work, how to get the best from you, how to reach you, and what your silence does and doesn’t mean.
I do my best thinking on my own, so I’ll often go quiet in meetings and come back with a proper answer the next day. It isn’t disinterest. If something’s urgent, grab me. If you want my view in the room, give me the question the day before.
How I work: a one-page note for your team
A template with the prompts that work, so you can write your note in about ten minutes and hand it to your team.
- Eight prompts, with example answers
- Space for how you like to be reached
- A line on what your silence means
Four more moves
Write before you speak. If you do your best thinking alone, use it. Writing ideas alone before pooling them beats open brainstorming (Mullen et al., 1991). Put it to work in your own meetings: everyone writes their view before anyone talks. Your quiet people get a seat at the table, and so do you. (There’s more on this in Psychological safety at work: what 12 Angry Men gets right about speaking up.)
Be assertive in the moments that matter, not all week. Pick two or three moments a week where you’ll turn the volume up: a pitch, a hard decision, a tricky conflict. Plan recovery time afterwards. That’s our reading of the faking-it evidence, not a tested intervention.
Treat listening as a skill, not a personality type. Feeling listened to is strongly linked to better work relationships, and more modestly to performance (Kluger et al., 2024). Notice what that doesn’t say: it doesn’t say introverts listen better. Listening is a behaviour. You can be a loud, brilliant listener and a quiet, terrible one. Summarise what you heard, ask one open question and hold your reaction.
Share the credit, out loud. Humble leaders spread humility through teams, and those teams perform better (Owens and Hekman, 2016). When you present team work, name who did each part. When who did what is unclear, credit tends to follow stereotypes rather than the work (Heilman and Haynes, 2005).
If you’re the one choosing, or managing a quiet person
Three things you can do this week.
Don’t pick on airtime. Promote on what someone will do in the next seat, and ask who people go to when they need help. The person who’s always in the room isn’t always the person who’s useful in it.
She’s not a natural leader. She hardly says anything in meetings.
Who do people go to when they’re stuck? What did she contribute to the last two decisions, in her own words and in writing?
Don’t let quiet people opt out. Ask for the written view, not the verbal one, and make that a standing rule so it isn’t a spotlight.
Check your own gut. Next meeting, note who spoke most, and whether they were the person with the best information.
Three popular claims, checked
Introverts make better leaders.
Extraverts are more likely to be picked as leaders, but extraversion explains only about a tenth of who leads well.
Introverted managers make more money.
One much-shared study of a pizza chain found that, with proactive staff, less extraverted managers did better. We can’t find an independent replication, so treat it as a hint.
Introverts are better listeners.
Listening is a behaviour, not a type. Anyone can learn it.
Your first move
Pick one, and write it as an if-then so it actually happens.
- “In my next team meeting, I’ll tell people one thing about how I work best and one way to get the best from me.”
- “If I’m about to give my view in a meeting, then I’ll ask two people for theirs first.”
- “If I’m dreading a presentation, then I’ll write down how bad I expect it to feel, do it, and compare afterwards.” (A Ducora suggestion, not a tested intervention.)
What the evidence says, and how sure we are
- StrongExtraversion is the personality trait most consistently linked to leadership, and extraverts are more likely to be picked as leaders (Judge et al., 2002; Grijalva et al., 2015). It explains roughly a tenth of the variation in who leads well. For effectiveness, estimates differ between reviews, so we say “small to moderate” (Hoffman et al., 2011; Wilmot et al., 2019).
- ModerateThe leadership edge comes from the assertive side of extraversion, not the sociable side (Do and Minbashian, 2014; Wilmot et al., 2019).
- ModerateSpeaking time predicted who got picked as leader, after accounting for intelligence, personality and gender (MacLaren et al., 2020). Dominant people were rated as more competent than they were (Anderson and Kilduff, 2009).
- StrongNarcissists get picked as leaders through an extraverted presentation without being more effective (Grijalva et al., 2015).
- EmergingIntroverts forecast feeling worse about a group task, and that forecast accounted for their lower leader emergence (Spark et al., 2018). One correlational study.
- ModerateActing extraverted for a week lifted most people’s mood, but more introverted people gained less and reported more tiredness (Jacques-Hamilton et al., 2019). One randomised trial.
- ModerateFeeling listened to is linked to better work relationships and, more modestly, to performance (Kluger et al., 2024). Mostly correlational.
- ModerateLeader humility spread through teams and raised performance in experimental and field studies (Owens and Hekman, 2016).
- StrongWriting ideas alone before pooling them beats open brainstorming (Mullen et al., 1991).
- EmergingThe much-shared “introverted managers earn more” result comes from one field study and one lab experiment, and we found no independent replication. It’s a hint, not a rule.
- Honest gapWe found no study that tests whether introverted leaders create more psychological safety, and we won’t claim it.
- Moderate, second-handSouthgate’s and Conant’s own accounts are what we have. They aren’t controlled evidence, and we haven’t credited anyone’s results to personality.
Frequently asked questions
Are introverts better listeners?
Not established. Listening is a behaviour, and being experienced as a good listener goes with better working relationships. Anyone can get better at it.
Is it okay to tell my team I’m an introvert?
It’s worth telling them what that means in practice more than the label itself: how you like to work, how to reach you and what your quiet does and doesn’t mean. The template above is built for that.
Should I act more extraverted to get ahead?
Use it for specific moments rather than as a full-time persona. In one trial, a week of acting extraverted cost the more introverted people more tiredness and less authenticity. Choose two or three moments that matter and plan recovery afterwards.
What’s an ambivert, and are they the best leaders?
Someone in the middle of the extraversion scale. One call-centre study found ambiverts sold more than people at either end, but it’s a single study in sales, not leadership. We wouldn’t call it settled.
How do I stop being overlooked for promotion?
Make your contributions visible without performing. Write them down, name the people you worked with, and ask your manager what the next seat needs, in terms of behaviour. If you’re the one choosing, promote on contribution, not airtime.
Sources
- Judge, Bono, Ilies and Gerhardt (2002), on personality and leadership.
- Wilmot, Wanberg, Kammeyer-Mueller and Ones (2019), on the extraversion advantage at work.
- Do and Minbashian (2014), on the agentic and affiliative sides of extraversion.
- MacLaren et al. (2020), on speaking time and leader emergence.
- Anderson and Kilduff (2009), on dominance and competence signalling.
- Grijalva, Harms, Newman, Gaddis and Fraley (2015), on narcissism and leadership.
- Spark, Stansmore and O’Connor (2018), on forecasted affect and leader emergence.
- Jacques-Hamilton, Sun and Smillie (2019), on acting extraverted for a week.
- Kluger et al. (2024), on perceived listening and work outcomes.
- Owens and Hekman (2016), on leader humility and team performance.
- Mullen et al. (1991), on brainstorming in groups.
- Hoffman, Woehr, Maldagen-Youngjohn and Lyons (2011), on traits and leader effectiveness.
- Heilman and Haynes (2005), on credit in mixed pairs.
- Southgate (2020), Anything Is Possible; Crystal Palace FC feature (2024).
- Conant, Harvard Business Review blog (2011), as quoted by Korn Ferry.
