Managing introversion and extroversion in the workplace using whole brain® thinking
Leading a team of introverts, ambiverts, and extroverts isn’t easy because they might react differently to the exact situations. You might feel inclined to try to move everyone to your preferred approach. But managing introversion and extroversion in the workplace requires a more delicate and deliberate approach to ensure everyone feels valued for who they are.
Most teams have a mix of introverts and extroverts, and that’s OK. Whatever the makeup of your team, recognizing and understanding different personalities, styles, and thinking preferences is invaluable for leaders who want to support their people and help them work more closely together.
Learn more about how we define introversion and extroversion, the workplace challenges these personality types face in the workplace, and how Whole Brain® Thinking helps you manage your employees no matter where they are on the continuum.
Understanding the Introversion-Extroversion Continuum
The introversion-extroversion continuum is a spectrum that measures an individual’s preference for social interaction and need for stimulation.
At one end of the continuum is extreme extroversion. These very extroverted people typically need lots of stimulation and thrive in social situations and group settings. At the other end is extreme introversion. Very introverted personalities typically feel comfortable being alone and in quiet environments. It’s important to note that defining someone as introverted or extroverted can be an inexact science and doesn’t carry a judgment.
Most people fall between the endpoints of the continuum, with varying degrees of comfort with what would be termed “extrovert” or “introvert” qualities. These people are often described as ambiverts — and they’re more common than you might think. While estimates vary widely, research by psychologist Adam Grant suggests up to two-thirds of people are ambiverts. Many ambiverts are rather balanced in their day-to-day actions, while others (called omniverts) tend to swing between introversion and extroversion, depending on the situation.
Understanding your place on the continuum helps you make sense of your behavior and better understand other people’s behavior. Someone who's introverted might be introspective, highly self-aware, need to recharge after social situations, and have fewer but deep friendships. Someone who’s extroverted might be talkative, action-oriented, quick to make friends, and gain energy from social interactions.
Knowing where you fall on the continuum can help you understand your behaviors, mood, and energy levels, whether in social situations or in how you approach work tasks. And by recognizing how those things manifest for you, you can recognize people who are similar to you and better understand people who fall elsewhere on the continuum.
The Challenges of Extroversion and Introversion at Work
The workplace can be a difficult environment for anyone who feels out of place. Most Americans believe that the workplace tilts toward extroverts, according to a YouGov survey, but every team and workplace is different. Introverts dominate some teams and cultures, while others are balanced. Whatever the team culture, people who don’t fit the dominant personality type might feel uncomfortable expressing themselves.
Here are a few ways this challenge manifests within teams.
Being an Extrovert in an Introvert Workplace
The rise of remote work in 2020 was challenging for many people who thrived on in-person interactions and camaraderie in offices and other job sites. By shifting to remote work and video-based interactions, many workplaces naturally became more aligned with the preferences of introverts.
Some extroverted employees, by contrast, struggled to maintain and build meaningful relationships over a screen and without the unscheduled, informal interactions that they used to have. When extroverts in remote and hybrid work environments feel they lack social interactions or opportunities to ideate, they can struggle to form deep, meaningful connections with teammates or clients. They might become isolated and disillusioned.
To overcome this challenge, leaders and managers can create more opportunities for their teams to collaborate and engage with each other. This can mean hosting virtual or in-person meet-ups or having a team lunch to give individuals time to talk and connect with their team.
Being an Introvert in an Extrovert Workplace
Many introverted employees benefited from remote work during the pandemic, but the office historically revolved around extroverts. Introverted team members were often encouraged to embrace extrovert traits, such as speaking up in meetings and embracing frequent, high-energy social interactions.
When introverts find themselves in a workplace that values people with bigger voices and doesn’t solicit everyone’s ideas, they’re less likely to speak up and, thus, less likely to contribute. In the worst-case scenario, this cycle builds on itself — extroverts’ ideas dominate the conversation, so they get all the credit and receive additional opportunities while introverts languish.
Overcoming this challenge requires accommodation and a new way of thinking about how people contribute ideas, rather than forcing introverted team members to change their personalities or preferences. Managers need to create opportunities for introverts to thrive while being themselves.
How Whole Brain® Thinking Helps Teams of All Personality Traits
Employees are most likely to do great work and be happy at work when their job duties align with their thinking preferences and have a team they trust and work closely with. One of the most reliable ways to understand your team's personality traits and thinking preferences is by having them embrace the Whole Brain® Thinking framework.
This framework provides an overview view of how people think and what types of tasks they prefer to do. Whole Brain® Thinking is divided into four quadrants: Analytical (Blue), Structural (Green), Relational (Red), and Experimental (Yellow). Everyone can succeed by using any of the four quadrants; in fact, we tap into each of these areas daily. Knowing your thinking preferences helps you understand the tasks you gravitate toward and where you might need to watch for blind spots.
We ask people to place themselves along the introversion-extroversion continuum when they complete the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI®) assessment, which reveals your thinking preferences. The data shows that, in very general terms, introverts tend to be more left-mode oriented (Analytical/Blue and Structural/Green), and extroverts tend to be more right-mode oriented (Relational/Red and Experimental/Yellow).
However, each quadrant can have its own continuum of introvert to extrovert and, thus, its own interpretation and impact. Here are examples of how introversion and extroversion show up in each quadrant:
Analytical (Blue)
- Introvert: Quiet, serious, very focused
- Extrovert: Debater, often funny, driven
Structural (Green)
- Introvert: Controlled, always “doing,” often keeps to themselves
- Extrovert: Dominant, organizer of events and people
Relational (Red)
- Introvert: Expressive through writing or other nonverbal communication, quiet caring
- Extrovert: Talkative, interested in bringing people together, sharing
Experimental (Yellow)
- Introvert: “Off in their own world,” does their own thing, independent
- Extrovert: Constant flow of ideas, loves to experiment with others, has fun
There’s no right or wrong combination of thinking preference and personality trait. After all, cognitive diversity is all about leveraging your team’s diversity of perspectives for better thinking, collaboration, innovation, and business outcomes. Every person’s unique characteristics add value. The difference from person to person is simply how you prefer to go about your work and interactions.
Leaders can start using Whole Brain® Thinking to better understand their thinking preferences, personality defaults — and that of their team members. From there, have everyone share and discuss their HBDI® results and thinking preferences openly and transparently.
These differences matter when creating cognitively diverse workplaces. Explain to your employees why cognitive diversity is important and why differences are welcomed and vital to unlocking game-changing ideas and perspectives.
3 Ways to Manage Your Team of Introverts and Extroverts
Every manager has to bring the best out of® their team by tapping into what makes them unique. Here are some tips for managing introverts and extroverts together.
Align Work With Personality Types
All of us can be analytical, structural, relational, and experimental in our work duties and in our personal lives. However, we all have distinct preferences in what we prefer to focus on. Introverts and extroverts are similar — an introvert can become a great public speaker, and an extrovert can learn to thrive with alone time, for example.
However, leaders who understand their teams’ preferences can shape work duties to play on strengths. For example, you might assign a key detail-oriented task to an introvert who prefers to work alone and then bring their ideas to the group. And you might lean toward giving your extroverts more public-facing, interactive assignments.
This doesn’t mean people will never perform work that aligns with their less dominant quadrants or personality traits. But by tailoring tasks to people’s personalities, leaders help everyone contribute to their fullest potential while appreciating their teammates’ different preferences.
Encourage Group Decision-Making and Brainstorming
Group decision-making and brainstorming allows everyone to have a voice in the decision-making process and share their perspectives — but it’s all in how these sessions are organized. You want everyone on your team to feel like they’ve had a chance to share their voice and contribute.
For example, soft-spoken or more deliberative team members shouldn’t feel excluded because team decisions are made in free-for-all meetings. Likewise, your extroverts should have opportunities for real-time interaction so they can bring their enthusiasm and play off each other’s ideas.
One way to encourage group decision-making and brainstorming on a team of introverts and extroverts is through a technique called "brainwriting."
Brainwriting starts with everyone in the group writing down ideas for a specific question or concept. After five minutes, each person shares their ideas with a teammate, who reads through and adds their contributions. This continues for a few cycles, and the ideas are gathered and discussed.
Another way to apply this to your team is by forming groups of two or three people. Each group should be a mix of introverts and extroverts. Share the question or concept, and give everyone five minutes to write down their ideas. Once time is up, have the small groups share their ideas, settle on the best idea, and devise a plan to implement it.
This approach allows for contemplation and reflection while also encouraging real-time discussion among teammates. The activity is ideation-focused (Yellow), while the writing down of ideas offers structure (Green). The resulting discussion brings people together (Red), and the act of deciding on a concept and how to implement it brings in analytical thinking (Blue).
Practice Open-Source Collaboration
Open-source collaboration is an approach to working together that encourages the sharing of information, ideas, and resources across a network of individuals and organizations. This approach can create a collaborative environment for introverts and extroverts to contribute their unique strengths.
For introverts, open-source collaboration offers a way to contribute to a project without the pressure of direct interaction with other people. They can use the collaborative space (usually some sort of software platform) to create, share, and refine ideas asynchronously. Because the ideation and iteration isn’t solely in real time, introverts have time to reflect before engaging.
For extroverts, open-source collaboration provides an opportunity to connect and exchange ideas in a structured setting where they can see what everyone else is doing and thinking. Because the platform is the designated place for project work, extroverts can immediately contribute, build relationships, and foster a sense of community within the team.
Open-source collaboration tools take many forms. Herrmann’s Stop & Think app brings the team’s HBDI® profiles into Microsoft Teams, allowing for tailored guidance on communication, decision-making, and problem solving. Introverts can use the asynchronous format to provide thoughtful, well-considered opinions, especially ahead of team meetings. Extroverts, meanwhile, have an ongoing channel for sharing ideas and feedback while connecting with their colleagues.
Bring the Best Out of Everyone on Your Team
Most teams have a mix of introverts, extroverts, and ambiverts. But regardless of your team’s makeup, your job is to create an atmosphere that encourages people to be themselves, share ideas, and embrace each other’s differences.
When you can apply cognitive diversity to your team’s culture, managing introversion and extroversion in the workplace becomes an opportunity rather than a problem. Start by understanding everyone’s thinking preferences and personalities — and making it OK to share these findings with each other. From there, design team activities that empower everyone to contribute in the way that’s most comfortable for them, and watch as their thinking, innovation, and outcomes improve.
Learn more about diversity and inclusion best practices that help managers get the most out of their teams.
