Are Ambiverts the Most Effective Leaders?

Ambiverts, extroverts, and introverts all have unique leadership skills.

KEY POINTS

• Extroverts and introverts can thrive in leadership roles, relying on their natural leadership-oriented traits.
• Ambiverts bring the best of both worlds to leadership due to their diverse strengths.
• Ambiverts balance enthusiasm and stewardship, allowing them to try new things in a carefully measured manner.
• Effective leadership is based on healthy and productive relationships, not just personality types.

For a while, people believed that only extroverts could be highly effective leaders. Their gregariousness, outgoing nature, and take-charge manners were viewed as the preferred leadership style. However, there are equally successful qualities that introverts can bring to leadership positions that set them apart. Some of the most frequently mentioned successful introvert leaders include Bill Gates, Mother Teresa, Barack Obama, and Warren Buffett. A tendency towards introversion did them no harm.

The key to effective leadership is the relationship a leader develops with their team. There are four basic elements that are essential to this relationship: trust, respect, support, and positive communication. None of these are negatively affected by the qualities that we typically associate with introversion or extroversion. While extroverts tend to get energized by being around people, introverts, on the other hand, build up their energy in quiet, solo ways. The extroverts among us recharge through socialization while socializing tends to exhaust introverts.