Do introverts rule the world?

September 29, 2013 by Minabere Ibelema 

   

Minabere Ibelema
| credits: File copy

At a time when ubiquitous communication technologies threaten to make introverts extinct, it was a relief to read a recent exposition to the contrary. It is a relief because I am myself an introvert — so much so that I am not on Facebook or Linkedin or any of the many options for being electronically on display.

When I tell casual acquaintances — especially at social events — that I am an introvert they are invariably sceptical. “No, you are not,” I’ve been told quite a few times. And that’s understandable. I genuinely enjoy conversations and would readily pull a leg or two.

Yet, as my long-term associates would readily testify, I rarely crave social occasions. I am at my best in the company of one rather than many. And I savour solitude much more than social occasions.

Still, even I didn’t realise how introverted I am until I read Susan Cain’s recent book, “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.”

Usually, when I go through a list of personality traits, I would score no higher than about 70 per cent on any given category. This is the first time I was close to 100 per cent, matching on 19 of the 20 items.

Cain, a lawyer and conflict negotiation specialist, added the caveat that the list is “not a scientifically validated personality test.” Still, I have no doubt that she knows what she is talking about.

Besides the traits I have already noted, Cain’s list of attributes includes the following: that introverts prefer working alone rather than in groups, are averse to risk taking, care less than their “peers about wealth, fortune and status, good listeners, dislike conflict, tend to think before they speak, and prefer writing to speaking.”

While these may seem to be mostly good attributes, in combination, they come with considerable baggage. Such was in evidence at a faculty association’s reception I attended recently.

Neither the association’s president nor the deputy could attend, and so it fell upon other officials to make remarks at the small gathering.When the former president of the association asked me to do it, as the parliamentarian, I declined. I wasn’t prepared, I excused myself.

How about the association’s secretary? I asked. Just in her early 30s, she is an assistant professor in the school of nursing.She rarely volunteered comments at the association’s meetings, so it didn’t come as a surprise that she declined to address the gathering of peers. Like me, she is apparently an introvert.

“Introverts are drawn to the inner world of thought and feeling,” writes Cain, paraphrasing Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist who coined the terms. And extroverts are drawn “to the external life of people and activities.”

Had extroverts been called upon to make comments at the gathering, they would have knocked down each other to seize the opportunity. In our case, I don’t know whether anyone ever volunteered to make the impromptu remarks, as I left soon after for another commitment. I just hoped that someone did.

Introverts are not necessarily shy people, as Cain points out. We just don’t care for public performance. And so we are not natural public leaders.But then “in a world that just can’t stop talking,” as Cain puts it, there is no shortage of people hankering to be leaders.

In such a world, in any case, introverts appear to be snobbish, not sociable and perhaps recessive. These are not endearing traits in the age of Facebook.Besides, being averse to risks means that introverts don’t venture much. And as the old saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Cain argues, though, that these perceptions can be totally off track or overdone. She notes that some of the most influential innovators of the information age are actually introverts.

Bill Gates, of the global software giant Microsoft Corporation, for instance, is an introvert. And so is Craig Newmark, the founder of Craiglist, the website that has done much to damage the U.S. newspaper industry by siphoning away classified advertising. Isaac Newton too was an introvert.

In fact, though introverts are averse to risks, introversion has been shown to be a prevalent characteristic of innovators and top performers in fields as disparate as music and science. And so, while introverts may not often be found in public leadership, they are leading from behind the curtains.

Excellence in most endeavours demands solitude. Yet, extroversion has become the dominant personality trait of our time, with Nigerians and Americans being possibly the most extroverted people in the world.

Ironically, in the United States the rise of extroversion is attributed to an introvert’s success in transcending the downside of his introversion and then undertaking the mission of helping other introverts do the same. Cain narrates the journey of one Dale Carnegie (no relations to the industrialist Andrew Carnegie) from introversion to the teaching of public speaking.

“Carnegie’s journey reflected a cultural evolution that reached a tipping point around the turn of the 20th Century, changing forever who we are and whom we admire, how we act at job interviews and what we look for in an employee, how we court our mates and raise children,” Cain writes.

The result, Cain continues, is a shift from a culture of character to a culture of personality. It became more important to seem rather than to be. Appearances began to triumph over reality.

This is not a case against extroverts, as such. It is a rebuke of superficiality.

Life will be considerably impoverished without extroverts. Without them, the ranks of political leaders would be considerably thin. We would have writers who inspire change but not people who galvanise the public to make it happen. Without extroverts, we would be diminished as social animals.

On the other hand, there is a need in all of us to engage with the being within. That’s the province of thinking and creativity, science and innovation. And so, even in the age of Facebook, introverts still rule — albeit reticently.