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Three of my recent clients have struggled to establish and build their profiles at work. A technically skilled and experienced female COO in a high-profile, fast-paced organisation, functioning internationally, needed to make a sustained impact with a counterpart in another country. A leader in the field of talent wanted to take the next step in his career, and needed to make a positive impression on known and unknown stakeholders. A leader in financial services was frustrated at repeatedly being turned down for promotion.

Out there or understated? Loud or quiet?

There’s a common perception that the effective leader is the leader with an imposing presence, whether that’s a physical presence, the volume of their speech, the amount they speak or the apparent authoritativeness of what they say. It can be easy to assume that the expressive, obvious character in the room is also the most obvious leader.

The challenge of the profile

While extroverted men find it easy to make their presence felt (and indeed take it for granted), introverted people – and introverted women in particular – struggle more to be noticed and valued. Extroverts enjoy talking about their achievements and they’re comfortable being in the limelight, including speaking in front of groups. They enjoy being seen and find self-promotion easy. In contrast, introverts are more likely to make much less of their gifts and talents, and are far less comfortable in the glare of the public gaze, so it can be challenging for them to build a public profile.

Introverts have a particular challenge when they need to raise their profiles within and outside their organisations, especially when it comes to developing their careers and strengthening their network connections of stakeholders.

Start with meetings

Introverts – who are energised by their internal lives rather than engaging with the outside world – can find connecting with other people in meetings tiring and costly in terms of energy. There are some simple strategies they can adopt to connect with others and establish themselves with more impact: looking at people, making eye contact and smiling, for example, can go a long way. So too can actually saying something – although that might be the most challenging aspect of meetings: finding a way to intervene in the cacophony of comments and opinions. It’s worth remembering that, as natural reflectors, the few well-thought-out things they have to say might have at least as much, if not more, impact than the many things that an extrovert has to say: extroverts often work out their ideas and what they mean while they’re speaking, which can be confusing for their listeners.

Relationships

As challenging as it might be for the introvert to interact with extroverts, it can be both enjoyable and fruitful for both of them to seek out one-to-one interactions with people who are significant stakeholders. This can be as casual as having a coffee together, it might be the offer of an idea, or it might be reflection at the water cooler on a shared topic of interest. And it all comes under the umbrella of raising your profile.

Profile by highlighting achievements

Sharing news of an achievement, and its impact for a team, a department or even an organisation can inspire and benefit others, besides building the individual profile: thinking of it as of benefit to the community can defuse the uncomfortable spotlight that it brings, and introverts can do well to allow their achievement more exposure by sharing it on whatever platforms their context offers – Intranet, newsletters and external events, for instance.

Fascinatingly, introverts are often comfortable ‘performing’ alone on stage (actual or metaphorical) than one might expect. A case in point is Brene Brown, originator of important – and highly impactful – signature work on vulnerability and humility at work.

Beyond the practical tips: just be

There are endless practical tips on raising profile. However, this ignores an important – and arguably more powerful – area that’s separate from the practical tips: how to ‘just be’. To find comfort and safety in the authenticity, ease and truth of being yourself without trying to match anyone else, and without trying to match the imagined expectations or assumptions of other people. That comfort with being yourself – being happy in your own skin – conveys natural confidence and gravitas (see my blog on gravitas) and can have more impact, and raise profile more effectively, than any number of learnt techniques. And for an individual to reach that state will be more or less challenging, depending on the condition of their self-perception, their self-belief, their self-esteem and their self-awareness. It might be hard work, but it can be appropriately addressed in coaching, and can be immensely and sustainably rewarding.

^{Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash}

The leader's profile

There’s a common perception that the effective leader is the leader with an imposing presence. It can be easy to assume that the expressive, obvious character in the room is also the most obvious leader. Introverts have a particular challenge when they need to raise their profiles, especially when it comes to developing their careers and strengthening their network connections of stakeholders. Introverts can find engaging with others in meetings tiring and costly in terms of energy. There are endless practical tips on raising profile. However, this ignores an important – and arguably more powerful - area: how to ‘just be’. To find comfort and safety in the authenticity, ease and truth of being yourself without trying to match anyone else, and without trying to match the imagined expectations or assumptions of other people. That comfort with being yourself – being happy in your own skin - conveys natural confidence and gravitas.

Conflict

Conflict is usually costly, painful and damaging. What are the alternatives? Some might say compassion. Others might say community, cohesion, or connection. Others might opt for peace or safety or kindness. Or collaboration or cooperation. Conflicts can pass in a moment and leave no apparent trace, or they can leave deep and long-lasting physical, emotional, mental, social, or economic wounds – and at its worst, individual or collective trauma. Not being in conflict brings a greater chance of wellbeing, of efficiency, of a sense of safety and of organisational or societal health. Besides needing emotional intelligence, not being in conflict, or defusing conflict, can take humility, a willingness to be vulnerable, and psychological safety. We can do worse than be guided by Marshal Rosenberg’s principles of non-violent communication, and a shift in thinking and conceptualisation from ‘you and I’ to ‘we’.

Time as gift or tyranny?

The author of ‘Time Shelter’, Georgi Gospodinov, treats time as a gift to the sufferer of memory loss, rather than the enemy it so often seems to be as a factor in our working lives. This perception of time as something we can have power over contrasts strikingly with the relationship that many leaders and managers – and indeed organisational cultures – seem to have with it: a perception that treats time almost as a ‘thing’, and that sees us as victims of it. Our relationship with time enshrines an intimate connection with achievement. In turn, achievement is connected to a sense of self-worth. We can feel like we are at the mercy of time, in contrast to a sense of emergence, but there is a richness in the emergence, enabling the capacity to perceive, accommodate and integrate a broader perspective. This is important for the task of leadership: to step back and see more interdependencies and more viewpoints.

Responsibility - and hedgehogs

Imbalance in the way responsibility is used (and not used) in systems of all sorts, including organisations, is large-scale and widespread. Too much responsibility may be assumed (albeit unconsciously). This shows up with leaders who work hard to make sure that everything that needs doing is done, typically to a high standard, no matter whose responsibility it actually is. Inappropriate responsibility may be imposed in childhood, and taken on into work, via an expectation from one or other parent. When leaders fail to take on responsibility that is theirs, it may be that they feel inadequate to the task or may fear failing, and may persuade themselves that by not acting they don’t risk failure. Like the hedgehog who freezes in the middle of the road, they are likely to incur failure rather than avoid it. One of the classic situations in which appropriate responsibility is not given is represented by the micromanaging boss. In all these scenarios, both the team and the leader are weakened and become brittle: they lack resilience and the capacity to learn, develop and change as much as they could, and/or as much as they need to.

The Right Kind of Wrong

Amy Edmondson's new book 'Right Kind of Wrong: Why Learning to Fail Can Teach Us to Thrive' explains how we get failure (a potentially invaluable learning opportunity) wrong, and how to get it right, highlighting that the most successful organisational cultures are those in which you can fail openly, without your mistakes being held against you. We're living in turbulent times, and, as Amy Edmondson points out, failure is both more likely than ever – but if it’s the right kind of failure, it’s also more valuable than ever. While most failures in organisations are treated as blameworthy – and there are failures we should definitely work hard to prevent – there are others we should welcome. The latter are the intelligent failures.

David Hockney, painting, and coaching

I recently had the opportunity to visit the stunning David Hockney exhibition in London (‘David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away)’. It prompted reflection for me both on what it offers to my conceptualisation of coaching and what I can learn that might enhance my clients’ experience of coaching with me. I found the exhibition nourishing, exciting, inspiring, refreshing, perspective-opening and deeply calming. It stimulated my thinking on how I might raise my awareness and challenge myself to look in more depth, and call on more perspectives and insights, with clients. Is there any sense in which I currently satisfy myself with looking partially, on a relatively small scale, or only in one perspective? Besides widening our perspective, the artist also highlights the rewards of looking in every direction at the same time, all the time. He characterises water as illusive, because all the patterns you see are on the surface. If, as coach, I take those patterns as the only patterns, then I’m only seeing part of the person I’m working with, and only some of the influences they’re subject to.

Who do you think you are?

I often hear leaders characterising themselves and their styles by reference to a set of behaviours, or a set of beliefs or values, or a combination of behaviours and beliefs. It's in this territory that the idealised self resides. The idealised self is the subject of quest, but probably not what is here now. And yet what is (and who is) now is, in a sense, the most powerful self we can be. However, I don’t often hear leaders describe their style by reference to their sense of who they are when they are truly present to themselves. Leaders I work with who discover and accept who they are tell me that the self- and system-awareness that is part of the discovery give them a palpable sense of acceptance, self-acceptance, peace and freedom. And from that emerge sustainable awareness of perspective, clear-sightedness about the ‘what’ and the ‘how’, compelling and engaging leadership, and capacity to relate healthily, learn and develop self, others and the organisation.

Where am I going? Achievement, development and transformation

Objective-orientated - directional - coaching will be appropriate for certain clients with certain types of coaching need. However, such coaching isn’t developmental coaching, or indeed transformational coaching. Development and transformation tend to be emergent: just because a client doesn’t appear to be going somewhere doesn’t mean nothing is happening. On the contrary, a great deal might be happening. A lack of structure in the emergence shouldn’t be confused with a lack of something valuable. There’s another aspect too to this kind of emergent coaching: not just acceptance, but radical acceptance. This, in turn, relates both to radical inclusion and to ‘weak signals’. All are important underpinnings of outstanding leadership.

Managing relationships: a somatic-relational lens

I’ve been working with a number of clients challenged by managing upwards or managing relationships with peers. In a variety of ways, I invited these clients to become aware of the bodily sensations and impulses towards movement that their individual experiences evoked for them. We worked together on the meaning of those sensations and impulses for them, and we worked at depth on any links with the various facets of how their ‘problematic’ relationships showed up in practice, with compassion and with a focus on the potential that new types of connection offered. Old messages and out-of-date interpretations came to the fore. Across these clients’ experiences there emerged an acceptance of ‘what is’, and an acceptance of ‘the other’ as they were rather than trying to fight it or resist it. They became more perceptive about the impact of ‘the other’ on them and theirs on ‘the other’. They felt more settled, safer, more trusting of themselves. They enacted more of their own true capability with a sense of greater space and freedom. Something important was released for them.

Presence and positivity

Positivity of thinking, behaviour, communication, leadership, and the way we relate to each other as human beings brings benefits. And yet, positivity without a foundation of reality and connection with one’s audience isn’t useful at all, and can indeed be damaging. If I share a dilemma or a problem with another person, I feel unacknowledged, unheard and let down if their response is simply to invite me to look on the bright side, to look for the pluses, or to look for the solution – or even to give me what they think is the solution. Any positivity I might experience is then short-lived and insubstantial. I need the other person’s presence. I need to be seen, and then I can feel a connection. Without that connection the other person’s positivity is too superficial to make any kind of difference for me – and at worst can actually betray my trust. I also need the other person to be attuned with me – to be paying attention to my inner experience.

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