Who has the advantage?

Who would have the upper hand when it comes to sales and leadership? The extroverts or the introverts? Let’s figure this out.

When I started my career in sales, I peddled jeans, presented samples, and visited the purchasing offices of department stores and boutiques (there were no malls yet).

I envied the confident, strong, and charming extroverted salespeople who would walk into the office, flash their “toothpaste commercial” smiles, crack jokes, and make everybody laugh. How I wished I were like them because I was not.

Then, when I worked up the proverbial career “ladder of success” and became a junior manager, I seemed to sense familiar things happening. I envied those confident, strong, charming, and chatty senior executives in the corporate office.

They seemed to possess the secret sauce for success, and many admired them, including me. These extroverted personalities seemed to have all the fun, while introverted, quiet, and deep-thinking people like me always stayed on the sidelines, watching them succeed without me.

Fast forward to today. We still think of the successful leader as an extrovert with a magnetic personality. Why is this so?

We associate leadership with extroversion and assertiveness, just as with salespeople, but modern research has shown that this is not the case.

Book author, business professor, and a legitimate “rock star” consultant, Dr. Adam Grant, studied sales reps at a software company and found that their personalities ranged from introvert (given a score of one point) to extrovert (given a score of seven points).

After three months, the average revenue they generated per hour didn’t vary much: $120 for the introverts and $125 for the extroverts. This goes against the popular notion that extroverts might naturally be more successful in sales or leadership roles.

The real winners? Three-, four-, and five-point ambiverts. They weren’t too loud or too quiet. They found the sweet spot –demanding respect without being aggressive and earning respect from others without being doormats. The top performers – averaging $208 per hour – scored a perfect four, right in the middle.

A deeper look into the study reveals that ambiverts are comfortable enough with others to navigate a social situation easily but can also step back to think strategically and plan.

They can be aggressive where necessary but are also active listeners, allowing others to contribute and share. This balance should enable ambiverts to change their communication depending on the situation or individual.

The longer I worked in sales, the more I noticed that “extroverts” follow a script. They crack the same jokes, laugh the same way, and have this template they adhere to in order to enhance their appearance of strength and confidence. They may be what you would call a one-pony trick.

In addition to sales, Grant found similar dynamics in other leadership roles. Quiet leaders can work well, thanks to their big-picture thinking, caution, deliberation and listening skills. They carve out space for diverse perspectives and draw others into the conversation.

Extroverted leaders can galvanize teams, keep them communicating, and build relationships more easily. This would be their superpower. However, both introverted and extroverted styles of leadership can have their disadvantages.

Here is a glaring one: an introverted leader might have difficulty delegating or speaking in public, while an extroverted leader might hog the conversation or overlook quieter team members.

From this, we can conclude that successful leadership isn’t about being a swashbuckling extrovert. It’s about playing to the strengths of different personality types and creating a workplace that collectively uses those talents.

Ambiverts, who can translate between the two extremes of their personalities, could be the most suited.

The good news in his study is that only a few are at either end of the spectrum, but the rest of us are somewhere in the middle – in ambivert land. Most of us are already right where we need to be to succeed, or we can get there.

Perhaps moderation is the answer. By being ambiverts, most of us might already have the optimal mix for success in leadership, sales, and other areas of life. We were, in a sense, all wired up to win.

The key is to be self-aware and open to adjusting our communication style depending on the situation. By knowing ourselves and others, we can use our strengths to our advantage in any setting.

One more thing: sporting a “toothpaste ad” smile would go a long way.

Francis Kong’s latest book, Leadership Excellence – on passion, purpose, productivity, and perspective, is now available at leading bookstores nationwide.