We've all seen the extrovert take control, delegate duties, then either take all the credit for successes or try to blame someone else for the failures. Well, finally someone has stepped up for the introverts.
It's a study by a couple of profs, Corinne Bendersky of UCLA and Neha Parikh Shah of Rutgers. Here's an excerpt from the abstract:
... we challenge the persistence of extraverts' advantage and neurotics' disadvantage in task group status hierarchies. In a field and an experimental study, we find that extraversion is associated with status losses and disappointing expectations for contributions to group tasks and neuroticism is associated with status gains due to surpassing expectations for group-task contributions. Whereas personality may inform status expectations through perceptions of competence when groups first form, as group members work together interdependently over time, actual contributions to the group's task are an important basis for reallocating status.
Download the full paper here.
Susan Adams gives us an easy-to-read summary at Forbes.com: Leadership Tip: Hire the Quiet Neurotic, Not the Impressive Extrovert.
It turns out that extroverts contribute less than team members expect and the contributions they do make are not valued highly over time. Neurotics, by contrast, are motivated to work hard on behalf of their teams, who wind up appreciating their efforts, in part because they exceed everyone’s expectations. In the end, extroverts decline in the teams’ esteem while neurotics rise in status. ...
The lesson of the study: Bendersky says team leaders should be wary of extroverts. “The core of an extroverted personality is to be attention-seeking,” she observes. “It turns out they just keep talking, they don’t listen very well and they’re not very receptive to other people’s input. They don’t contribute as much as people think they will.” If she were putting together a team, says Bendersky, “I would staff it with more neurotics and fewer extroverts than my initial instinct would lead me to do.”
The extrovert gets the girl, and the introvert gets the job done.
[Is it "extravert" or "extrovert?" Robo-ed. Either one. Sleepless.]
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