From Steamrolling to Supportive — How Extroverted Leaders Can Champion Introverts

Welcome to the powerful introvert podcast. I’m Greg Wanger. I’m here today with and keep me honest here Holly Holly Golobowski. Perfect. That was right. Yes, nailed it. As we just said, my name has been butchered almost my entire life. Winger, Winger, Winger, Wininger. If you could think it, I’ve probably heard it. So I’m sure you’ve experienced some of the same. Absolutely. That’s why a lot of people just call me Holly G. It’s much easier to say and easier to remember. All right. So I may be calling you that during this podcast as well. But I’m super excited to have you on the podcast today because you’re a really deep expert in leadership and leadership training. Yes, I’m delighted to be here and I’m very excited when I found out about the podcast and introverts. I feel like it’s a very under under recognized group of people who I think are very much often overlooked. So I’m excited to be here and talk about it and talk with you today. Awesome. Well, let’s get into it. So maybe we can start out with easy one. It’s it’s on your on your shirt here. Could you tell us a little bit about what you do and your company leader skills? Yeah, absolutely. Leadership skills. Pretty much we call it no bullshit leadership training. I hope I’m allowed to swear on your podcast. Absolutely. As much as you need to. All right. Wonderful. It is really it’s the evolution of it. It’s probably the best way to explain it. I in my early in my career struggled heavily when I made the jump from on-site manager to a regional manager and ended up going to my boss asking for help and the coach that they found for me to help me as NanoConner, the creator of the content, the whole platform leader skills and pretty much it is everything that she taught me back then that completely changed my career. I call myself student zero because we spent about six months going through a lot of different topics and tools and you know things from handling conflict to having self awareness and she took that and pretty much created you know courses out of it for people to learn to be better leaders and I can’t take full credit. She actually looked back at a lot of people that you know it sees sweet executives. She’s worked with over the years and just said what made them great leaders and looked at over the course of her career which now she’s been doing it for 27 really developed the program curriculum based off of people she saw being very effective and how they did it well. So it is pretty much an online training course that you can take but it’s also hybrid. There are sessions that I or other facilitators will lead with the groups going through it. It takes about 30 minutes of time every two weeks to do the curriculum and then you have two weeks to practice it. So it’s I think very unique in that you you can start doing right away within minutes of learning this information and then you’re actually learning on the job. So it’s it’s pretty awesome and I’m very happy to be a part of it and really enjoy it. That’s great you must have there’s a special depth that you get if you’re there in the beginning and part of helping to develop the materials I imagine. Oh absolutely it’s been very rewarding and it was very serendipitous how I got involved. I feel I’m humbled a bit that someone like Nan that I’ve looked up to very much and has a lot to offer leaders I think asked me to get involved with her a few years into it so yeah it’s been pretty awesome. Yeah so and that became your path but I think a lot of people were on have been in those same shoes where you’re encountering struggles and in your job you’re earlier on in your career and there’s a point where you realize that you need some help. So what are some of the most you know from what you’ve seen the most common challenges aspiring leaders encounter. Oh well there’s probably two. First of all assumptions in the workplace I think are a complete enemy but we do it all the time we make assumptions based on what others are doing or how they react based on our own internal dialogue or how we would do it or why we would act that way and I think that is a huge error that a lot of us make because conflict and facing conflict is the second problem and conflict comes from unspoken and unmet expectations and when we make a lot of assumptions we’re creating our own conflict you know it’s it’s very interesting how those two can interact together so I would say those are two things that have a lot to do with a lot of problems and and confrontations or people being unhappy those two things. That’s right and and you know a lot of times what I’ve seen you have people from two different departments and their their incentives or what they’re they’re supposed to be doing are misaligned and so so I guess it’s it’s surfacing those things in your in your framework which which helps that helps with. Absolutely. Are there any particular challenges that you see in that for introverts? Well that’s a very open and a question I could probably just keep talking for quite a while but I would say the first and most important thing with introverts is that typically so let me tell you something that Nan shared with me and that’s that stuck with me and I think is really interesting is that in the workplace and over all the years she’s been a coach the majority of the CEO she’s worked with have been extroverts but some of the very best were introverts. So I think a woman who not only has been an executive coach certified master with ICF like she’s very probably coached more C-suite people than most coaches coaching today I mean over the course of her career she’s just it’s not not only been doing that a long time but I also owned her own advertising company shed clients like Coca Cola like it was no mom and pop shop like it was a big deal so for her to say something like that in her own experience I think speaks a lot to the skills and abilities that introverts have that people often overlook because they are not the loudest people in the room that’s probably going to be what I refer back to a lot as we talk today just how undervalued and on her to they are in the room. That’s yeah totally agree with that message it’s something that I think people need to see and maybe I like to say they’re offering hiding in plain sight introverted leaders aren’t calling attention to themselves but they’re there and if you watch for them it’s really interesting to see how they kind of exert their influence and power because it’s a different style it’s a different leadership style and that’s so that’s great to hear that that’s you know someone as experienced as as your mentor has seen a lot of that absolutely I imagine that you know we we were talking about what are these common challenges and one of the things that that I’ve seen or encountered or just experienced myself is that it’s in is in dealing with conflict and so I think just to generalize a little bit with with people are on the introverted side there is more hesitation to conflict so are there some additional strategies for for as you settle in and kind of deal with conflict yeah I think that so something that I think you know I’m very involved with there’s something we do at leader skills as we make everyone take the disc profile it’s not a personality assessment it’s been around for a very long time and even in my own experience I very rarely have people after I’ve worked with them long-term say that isn’t me it’s so even the people that say that isn’t me within a few months they’re like or even a few days they’re like a crap that is me but there’s no right or wrong disc and I’m going to since you know a lot of your listeners may not be familiar with it I’m going to try to put it into like broader terms but the majority of people that take the disc there’s four different types dominant influence to steadiness and and compliance and so typically two-thirds of people are on the S or C range which means steadiness and compliance and that just means that people are solving the problems when they’re high-sea really by looking to the rules the structure around them because they want to make sure they’re doing things the right way and looking to those resources steadiness usually they solve problems by not they don’t want the boat to be wrapped you know they want to keep everybody kind of even keel everybody get a little long and traditionally those S’s and C’s are introverts not always but traditionally and two-thirds of the world fall into that SC spot that means the majority of the people you work with are probably introverts but what’s funny is most people don’t see or hear the introverts because they do tend to be quiet right even though the the majority it’s the more dominant more like outgoing at people who use like their people skills to influence people or they’re just more aggressive that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad but just more aggressive and how they approach people more dominant so you have these outgoing dominant people who everybody sees and hears because they’re the loudest they speak up the most often they’re not afraid of failure as much because they are just gonna you know probably throw spaghetti at the wall to a degree whereas I think people that fall into the introvert category think more deeply about things they take more time to consider all the avenues all the areas of a problem or a situation because their mouth is shut more often you know they’re taking that time they’re they’re listening and I think the reality is the loud people who are often leaders are not doing that and I’m guilty of this myself I am the high D high I am the person in the room that’s talking too much and too loud and it’s interesting because with leaders skills it really did make me self-aware it put that mirror in front of my face and made me realize oh my gosh I haven’t seen or heard the people in the room that probably are my best asset so what I would say is that if you are an introvert um there’s people like me in the room that are just oblivious completely oblivious to the fact that we’re not hearing or seeing you because we’re used to the loudest in the room and paying attention to them it’s I think important to remember that the people like me out there don’t not care we don’t want to not hear you and we don’t want to not listen it we’re just it’s gone over our head and I can tell you I’m fully guilty of not reading between the lines I don’t know how many time people have said well you should know and I’m like what should I know I don’t I don’t know what I should know and they’re like well I mean I’ve implied or I’ve you know dropped hints or just different things that we’re not direct communication so what I would say is that um I had someone after I started working with Nan that really kind of put themselves in front of me they were an introvert and became my partner in crime in effect and it was because Nan said stop listen and here already has to say and stop leading the witness stop having leading questions because he’s never going to give you your opinion if he already thinks you’ve made your mind up so um I just think it’s important if you are an introvert to make sure you take a moment to be your own advocate and really it doesn’t have to be in the middle of the meeting or in the middle of a group of people but take time to go to maybe your your boss or people that you’re interacting with that maybe are stepping on your toes or steam rolling you just say hey I just want you to know I had a few thoughts about this I wanted to share it but and be very honest you can say I am an introvert and that makes a big difference with people like me because it makes us stop and think for a minute hey wait okay you’re an introvert I’ve never considered that before and now you’re telling me hey Holly I feel steamrolled which when I was first told that I was blown away and felt horrible because that was not my intent right I mean that’s not what I meant to do or say I don’t feel like I’m being heard or you’re not listening you know those are things that we very much have no clue we do not realize and um I think that’s important to remember we have no intention to overlook you or not hear you I really appreciate that perspective I think that’s a really great thing for people to hear because it’s a really reminder to have some empathy because you know it’s it there’s I think there is a natural tendency you know I’ve I’ve had this you know plenty of times it definitely been guilty of it of taking that personally and so like whenever possible can you know to assume good intent and to let the person know and understand there I guess that’s part of what the disc profile is about because because it’s like understand that that’s just their style and they’re going to keep thinking aloud and you know and that’s fine that’s the extrovert mode and the introvert mode it’s frankly hard to think when someone’s talking the whole time because you’re focused on trying to processing everything that the the extrovert is saying and then and then you feel like you’re not contributing because you’re you know you’re not doing your best thinking and that so it’s great to to create those opportunities for communication. Absolutely and and really we you can even in your own situation come up with ways to almost have a buzzword to kind of put the extroverts in the room on notice um after I became more self-aware in my company I work for at the time ended up hiring Nan and she they insisted she developed leader skills without knowing that’s what it was at the time and she ended up rolling the program out to them thinking it was only for them and it it did really well so we all kind of evolved together as a company with all these principles and one thing we started saying was hold on let Laurie blend because we knew that this great woman who was a very good leader in the room didn’t speak out much but she needed time to blend on what was being spoken about and so she just said guys I need time to blend give me a minute and that actually made a very big difference you know because then we realized it wasn’t that she didn’t want to say anything it wasn’t that she wasn’t listening it wasn’t that she had nothing to offer we just needed to give her more time in the room so that that became very helpful I think for a lot of us. I like the ash haven’t heard that that idea before I just heard it’s more like the safe word for introverts. Yeah. Great. I like that. Those are the kinds of things that I on the lookout for. What are norms or structures that can help create a more inclusive room for dialogue and so one of the ideas I’ve talked about or heard about is you know it’s preparation for meetings so like you know you have an idea I mean thinking allowed and talking loud in a room is fantastic for extroverts and then because that’s when they do their best thinking and then and the opposite for introverts so if you give them time they can come prepared and then and then you kind of have a more even playing field or and actually I think it can help the extroverts too to have that time to prepare as well. Oh yes we really could value from that I’d like that would be huge if we would do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Any other I mean not to put you on the spot with this one are there any other ideas or are kind of you know approaches that a company can take to try to foster this kind of dialogue. Well I think that you know a very few companies train leaders on being leaders they train people on how to do how to have like this is how to do all the tasks of your job. So I do not think every company needs to you know spend a ton of money and go hire a company like leader skills if they don’t have the funds there’s other things you can do like just taking the disk having a company just everybody takes it automatically and it creates a self-awareness amongst everyone to look in the mirror and it gets everyone on the same page and there’s lots of assessments out there I genuinely fully think the disk is the best personally but any tool like that is going to be helpful and make it available to everybody at the company keep them all in a shared drive. So if you know you have to go have a conversation with someone so if you are an introvert and you have to go have a tough conversation with an extrovert sell them on your idea you can pull down their disk and it even tells you in there like here’s how to talk to this person and it tells you also what you can fall into that can turn off that person from listening. So it has a lot of really interesting things in it like that that I would highly recommend but also I would say if you are someone that needs to go into a meeting and you are speaking up as hard for you then go find a cheerleader to be on your team before you go into that meeting you know find someone that you can talk through that idea first that you know is an extrovert that is going to be a little louder about speaking up for you too obviously it’s important that someone that you trust because you don’t want them to steamroll you and take your idea or run away with it in a way that you do not intend and maybe it’s a band of other people that are in your boat too and you all don’t speak up but if you all talk about it together ahead of time when you go into that meeting it’s going to be easier for you because you’re not just standing alone out there on your own and I really do think it’s important to never forget you probably have more value to add to the conversation that everyone in the room talking because most of us are talking shooting from the hip and we’re just loud and maybe what we’re saying is smart and right but maybe not and just really remind yourself over and over if you have to print it above your you know your monitor I think it’s so important to remember that the value add is huge and if you let everybody in the room speak that speaking and the quiet ones that they’re the whole time you’re doing a disservice to your company by not speaking up because you’re not throwing things out there that most people probably haven’t thought about. That’s great advice a great reminder and then you know I think I like that idea of getting early feedback or cheerleaders people in that and that’s part of a broader theme of preparation which really helps introverts you know that’s you know you don’t do your best thinking on the fly work work in advance and and so and that’s helped a lot you know that’s something that’s come up over and over in people in my own life but and also in people I’ve talked to so that’s that’s great and you can see how having that self-awareness or more self-awareness can just facilitate those kinds of conversations and better understandings between people. Absolutely. As part of your training and you know my understandings you’ve worked a lot with middle managers and you know maybe let us start with that that shift between individual contributor and you know when there’s someone’s first getting into management what is what is the kind of the biggest mindset shift you have to go through in order to make that change. I think I mean there’s lots of things that plan to but I think first of all again like I said earlier you’re going from being a task person to now your job is to you know drive strategic vision and get people in the bus and get contributions from the team on what’s important and what’s not and and that is that is just a 180 from being a task person to doing that you know taking time to make sure you’re thinking of that going into it is huge and I think something else to consider too is the Peter principle which I’m you may be aware of where people get promoted to the job they can’t do that doesn’t mean when you get promoted to the job you can’t do that you can’t do it but you have to acknowledge maybe that you can’t you don’t have the skill set for it so you need to become a student a student of yourself really understanding who you are how you come across is way more important when you make that shift to leader than it’s ever been before because how you accomplish things how you communicate with people is all going to be judged so differently than it was when you were just you know sitting by them as a teammate right to give yourself grace to be a student and you know a chance to learn and a chance to to fail also as you learn because it’s a great teacher but that you can do it it’s also a more optimistic take on the Peter principle than I’ve heard before but you know there’s hope yeah and there are some people that just can’t do it right but yeah that’s something we consider too because there was a point where I almost got fired which is how I ended up with Nan and if if I had never accepted I needed to learn more I would have been done I would have been washed out at that point so that that leads to my optimism in it and you know something else too conflict and failure I think again this is a little bit from the disc S’s and C’s as I mentioned before traditionally are introverts not always but S’s and C’s are very afraid of conflict or shy away from it and failure same thing afraid to take steps that they could fail at because they want to think very carefully make sure that they thought through everything and that there’s no chance they’re wrong about anything but you really have to lean into that a bit you know to really grow and develop if you never fail then you’re never going to grow my list of what not to do again is very very long and my list of what to do again is actually pretty short because a lot of times what worked wasn’t because I did it right it was just a period of time where it worked all the right pieces came together so it may not be a recipe to use again so if you’re afraid of failure and you don’t let yourself do that there’s a lot of things you won’t learn so it’s important to remember that too I think and handling conflict we spent a lot of time in leader skills talking about how to handle conflict and providing tools and if you can really learn how to have a conversation and address conflict in a way that makes it almost unemotional it’s more of a process it can make your life so much easier much easier and I think that’s important too I think that’s right and there’s another theme that you know as I got more into leadership and and certainly senior leadership this theme of discomfort comes up more and more and you know I think it it’s probably is more uncomfortable for introverts in those situations or you there’s more discomfort you you’ll encounter but I’ve heard plenty of any you know I’d love to hear your experience about this too because I’ve heard it from people who are just like impossibly extroverted in my mind you know like they’re just you know it’s like that leadership is is really uncomfortable for them at times and that you know the higher you are the more uncomfortable it can get so it doesn’t it does that bring up a contra or anything for you well I think what’s interesting is as you move up you’re going to be surrounded by more and more extroverts so I think that in itself is going to make it more uncomfortable because again we’re less aware of how we’re coming across and and it’s interesting right because they’re more extroverts not because they’re more quick to do the job necessarily but because they’re the loudest people in the room they are their own advocates in a way that an introvert never it will be so that’s how they end up in those roles and it’s funny I just think like if if you are aware of that and understand your difference is good and the way you do it and accomplish it just because it’s different and maybe the extroverts may look at you weird or think that you know may not see the value and how you do it believe in what you’re doing because again I go back to Nansang the very best CEO she’s worked with were introverts what they’re doing they’re doing right they are more equipped because they care more because they’ve thought through things more they’ve listened more they do things that an extrovert much like myself will not do because it doesn’t come naturally to us so it may get more uncomfortable but honestly the higher you go the more value you have in that company because you are doing things differently and you’re pushing people that are probably doing things differently in a way that can make them better too that’s right and the other thing is you know as you have more influence you have more power to make things easier for for all everyone around you and you know just one example is like as I’ve been a senior leader I can set policies for meetings I can arrange our offsite meeting to take breaks in a way that it’s extrovert friendly I can give people the tasks to prepare and you know so they’re not put on the spot and that’s not to say you don’t have a lot of influence if you’re you know you’re even at an individual contributor level because you have the ability to point these things out and educate people around you on that yes absolutely and I don’t think anyone listening should undervalue that I know it’s uncomfortable sometimes to speak up and ask for that but you really have to be your own advocate I mean that’s why that us outgoing people are promoted and doing well because we are our own advocates so if you can speak up and explain to other people in your organization if we did this one little thing or change this or maybe you know organize things a little differently it could be good for the company because of x y and z and again don’t assume we’ve already thought that through because we certainly have probably not right and yeah when you raise these things you know bear that empathy in mind you like people people are just not not aware yes that’s really should probably be the moral of the entire that should be the thing of this is that we are very unaware so yeah and I think a lot’s to be said for when you go into a conversation and just lead with that more often for example I can get very like wound up and people think I’m mad almost because I’m like oh my gosh and I have a lot of emotion around what I do so I’ve just gotten in the habit when I’m talking to anyone I work with a partner employees anybody and just saying hey guys I am really proud of about this it’s not you I’m not mad you know just you know I’m just like I’m really more excited than anything so please keep that in mind as we talk through this whereas I think if you’re an introvert and you kind of lead with that hey guys give me a few minutes here to get this out I know I’m going to be a little slow delivering this or I might be you know there’s a lot of details I want to get out so if you can just give me 10 minutes and keep in mind I’m an introvert please bear with me for this you know leading with that sets the expectation in a way that it wouldn’t work if you don’t if that makes sense the way I said that yeah absolutely it’s really yeah whenever possible if you can set expectations and yeah and that’s something I wrote a piece about you know let me speak you know it’s and that’s that’s one of the techniques is like you know yeah bear with me five minutes now I’ve worked with people who don’t have that five minutes like they’ve got two minutes max before you know they’re going to go but you know like you know but you understand that and that’s that’s having empathy for them that’s you know that’s that’s their capability so you kind of prepare for the communications for the the person you’re talking to yeah yeah remember sometimes it’s a habit of ours to start thinking about what we want to say while you’re talking and you have to find different ways to draw us in to make sure we don’t do that or to reset us to get us back in there and and again I think that’s why it’s really important that companies really try to focus on self-awareness and understanding each other and having empathy because there’s no right way to do anything not at all I mean I think companies that focus on the results not the process do very well because how I accomplish something is wildly different than my husband who isn’t introvert I mean the sheer way that we accomplish things in our household is you could probably do a case study on it because my extrovert and his introvert were way are so different but we get to the same results just we don’t understand why we both do it the way we do and we both just accept it and it is what it is so and yeah self-awareness is so important and it sounds like the the disc profile helps a lot with that are there any other suggestions you’d have for developing that self-awareness I think there’s a lot of good books out there to read first of all I think that you know you always have to be a student with yourself as the subject matter throughout your career and I think it’s for you know your personal life too it’s great so I do think that we’re all very different and there’s different books out there that are great for different people in different ways but first of all I just think you know like the Harvard Business Review magazine I I love that I still get the print copy by the way because I love to read the print copy but every issue there is something in there I feel like that is just oh my gosh I thought about it that way you know or and it gets you thinking about things about yourself as well that’s just one example I have you should see I probably have 80 books sitting here on my book shelves that I’ve you know I haven’t read all of them but I know of all of them enough to be able to give people like hey this one is about this maybe you should check this one out because some of them don’t speak to me personally but they’re great for other people in different ways so I think that’s important and I also think you know finding a mentor out there resources people that you can talk to that’ll help you understand how people are perceiving you or that’ll give you that tough love conversation I think that’s very important too you know when you’re looking for mentors and I think everyone is guilty probably I can’t speak if you’re in a trovert how you would do this but I imagine the person that is the most successful and everybody looks up to is the person most people want to be their mentor but just because they are the leader and appear to be the most successful doesn’t necessarily mean that they are the right person to be a mentor to help you grow it doesn’t mean that they’re gonna listen and see you in a way that they can really help make you be your best you know I would look around it you know who has a really successful team or who do people really respect that that maybe isn’t necessarily the top leadership role but you know who’s getting it done who’s always producing results you know there’s a lot of things to consider and look at when you’re looking for someone to help be a mentor to give you that advice yeah that’s really great advice and you know who’s maybe to add to that like who makes you feel good when you’re around them yeah makes the people other people feel good around them they’re probably more likely to see you and recognize you for who you are and see your potential I think that’s a really especially for an introvert it’d be because especially early on in your career this was my experience I was not presenting as a leader you know like this just to this is a way to put it and so you know I think my potential is overlooked and I was like wait a minute you know like you know I’m interested in this and then I eventually did find a mentor who was you know really believed in me and supported me in that yeah it makes a big difference and it’s a good mentor leader you really have to listen and let me just tell you if you go after someone like me in my young years I was not the right person to be a mentor because I would have told you all about me you know like what works for me how I do it and that’s that’s just all the wrong things to do which is probably why I enjoy what I do now so much because it’s really open my eyes and giving me empathy and curiosity I think curiosity is very big I think a lot of us take things personally when we shouldn’t because we just don’t realize they may not have even considered us in the equation you know like it’s not about me we don’t want to think it’s about us but the reality is there’s so many of us in a room it’s important to realize that what you’re taking or assuming as a thing is not even a thing or did any part and they didn’t mean it personally to you yeah these are harder in the lessons and it’s really I mean I’ve found it a real pleasure as a mentor to to give back and and to help people you know avoid some of the pain you know obviously you can’t prevent everyone’s going to have their own challenges but yeah to be able to give back in that way is it is a it’s very rewarding absolutely so there’s there’s other sort of subject of change and so we’re always in the process of development and there are certain things like let’s say you have a mentor and they’re holding up that mirror to you and you’re like oh I’m really doing these things and I don’t know how to how to change or like I know what I should be doing but I’m struggling with it I guess how do how do you think about change how do you help people approach some of these these difficult difficult changes I think first of all it goes back to being a student yourself I think that we all have DNA one way that we describe it with the disc is like the way that you solve problems around you is it’s kind of like the software running in the background and you can’t rewrite the software but you can create some cheat codes if you put it into habit to really kind of stop yourself when you get back into habits you know there’s usually red flags so if I for example if I get mad or I start feeling too much emotion that to me is a red flag I’ve just trained myself that boom holly you need to stop and why are you feeling this emotion what’s really causing it and I’m still working on it I mean I think Nana and I started working together probably 12 to 15 years ago and and I still have to remind myself of those things and it’s it’s it’s so that I help others better it’s not necessarily for my own benefit and how I accomplish things it’s to make me a better leader of the people around me that I do that so what I would say is first of all accept that you can’t change who you are you just are who you are but you have to then really think hard about how you’re being perceived and how you know you need to really be aware of things that you can do that maybe other people misinterpret you know for example my father and I are identical except he’s an introvert people think I’m bubbly and happy and people think he’s stuck up and it’s like why is that it’s really strange you know because we both have almost everything else about us is the same and it’s just how people interpret him in the room quietly sitting there but once you get to know him he’s just as funny and bubbly as I can be he just when he goes to recharge he goes to be alone when I go to recharge I want to be around a group of people so that’s that’s about the main difference there so I think knowing those things and then putting things in place to make sure you’re a student to an on a regular basis even if you have to schedule time initially put it on your outlook calendar you know to really think about what do I need to be more aware of what can I be better at and maybe it’s something as simple as I’m going to speak up in my meetings and say at least one thing you know take a baby step whatever it is and you write it down and you make it a goal and you put it on your calendar so every week you’re looking back at what you said you’re going to do so that you’re continually trying to make those things more of a habit to help override your software that’s right and it’s really grounded in self acceptance self awareness and self acceptance like not only oh I do this but but this is this is me you know this and that’s that’s great I’m I know that I’m happy and bubbly when I’m you know with a group of friends that I’m comfortable with and and then I’m not showing that when I’m in a in a big group of people with that I haven’t met before so yeah bringing that level of acceptance and then so again that said I I would there are things I want to do in the world I got things I want to accomplish and it’s you know for like in your example I want to do this for my team so so I’m going to take these steps and maybe make myself uncomfortable in the process but it sounds like that’s that as the process of change yeah that that is very true and it can be uncomfortable but I also think the more you do it that it does get a little easier I know that it’s never going to be completely is it easy it’s always going to be forced but there are things we can kind of train ourselves and if you take that bite the bullet a few times it makes it a little easier to force yourself to do it down the road I mean like think about a networking event I actually have some people friends that I’ve gone with them because they’re introverts I don’t even know what the heck these people do for a living but I’m the one that went into the networking event with them to get people talking and make a comfortable I have been joke that I should just start that as a business to be your networking buddy it’s a really great this idea there’s a mark in the but yeah it’s interesting how you just kind of have to do baby steps for yourself enforcing yourself to do those things one other thing I wanted to ask about is support systems so you’ve mentioned mentorship what other things can you know aspiring leaders do to gain support introverts can make great leaders because they listen right so you probably already have people around you at work that very much respect you without you even really thinking about it a leader that is an introvert is probably doing things very quietly you know talking to people getting things done behind the scenes they’re not like William Pullman Independence Day giving the speech on top of the military equipment getting everybody excited to go kill the aliens you know which is what a lot of us think the leader is but the reality is that speech is only good until the adrenaline wears off right and then you go back to being an overly pushy aggressive boss which is what I was versus the introvert who is kind of the silent assassin in the background you know they’re they’re doing things they’re respecting people they’re listening and by the way I’m saying this very it sounds very extreme there’s no right or wrong in the desk and there’s no right or wrong in people and how they do things it’s about being self-aware and you know empathy for others so I don’t want to make it sound like there’s a right or a wrong in anyone’s personality or how they do things but um but I do genuinely think that you probably don’t realize it as an introvert but there’s a lot of people that already quietly respect you without it even being said so first of all looking around you and seeing those things and developing those relationships you may already have a team you don’t know you have you know people that support you so um cultivating those relationships too and and someone you’re really comfortable with and work with on a regular basis just having a candid conversation with them too about hey I’m uncomfortable in these situations do you have any suggestions and how I can do better and and having those conversations um I think actually will help you a lot have more of a team and more cheerleaders and as you get used to having those conversations you’ll probably end up finding more mentors and getting more feedback to help make you better as well yeah it’s a really good suggestion um I like to think of it as a you know the certain stage of my career was is like I have friends everywhere and you know I was like it sounds slightly mercenary but it’s in a way it’s like you’re building capital like it’s your but but but you do do that by truly caring and trying you know truly being a support to other people and then their your support and that becomes an influence network you can get incredible amounts of things done when you have you have people supporting you throughout your company absolutely and when people know you’re the one getting things done in the background and you’re the one that’s always respectful the traits about that surrounding an introvert I mean there’s so many good traits and I think just because you aren’t the loudest one in the room you have no idea how much you are actually valued in a lot of ways but because you’re not your own loud advocate you know you have to develop those relationships to make sure everybody does see you and know you because if you don’t what happens you end up with all of us extroverts and leadership roles so you do have to if you are for you to think about it on your own as an introvert don’t do it for yourself do it for the betterment of your company and the betterment of your team yeah a lot of times it’s easier for me to think about it that way is that I’m trying to help other people because yeah and I think part of it is like you know there it doesn’t feel authentic just to just be doing it for yourself you know that’s that’s part of the psychology I think of why you don’t want to be grabbing attention for yourself and you’re kind of kind of showing away but when you you do that for other people then that’s motivating and it does feel authentic absolutely yeah that’s absolutely awesome this has been a lot of fun there’s a there’s a lot of topics we could cover yeah I just I just love your you know just the refrain of just you know look really we don’t know and I’m part of me it’s like no we get it we know you do not aware but but the part we forget is that you know is that is is the empathy and the care is like like like you know that you really you know you people are well-meaning we’re all coming from the place we’re coming from and it give that other person the benefit of the doubt absolutely and and something else I think I could offer I would say is ask yourself questions you know coaches pretty much get paid to schedule time with people to ask them questions they could already ask themselves right they just don’t have time to do it or the you know to sit down with someone for 50 minutes and say here’s my problem and then all we do is ask you a lot of questions to get you thinking really you come up with the answers so really being curious about it there’s something you are afraid to do or like going into a meeting say okay what’s my biggest fear and drilling down on those things will really help you understand more about what your trigger points are and things that are really scary and you and maybe when you get to the bottom it’s something simple that you can just let go of you know or or something you can work around for me when I first left corporate America to go to school to be the coach and to get involved with all of that it was it was terrifying for me and I finally one day woke up and I’m like okay what’s the worst that could happen and literally I live by that question now what is the worst that could happen why am I afraid or you know what is bothering me and then just starting to write down and every answer I put I ask more questions about it so if you try to face face things that way too I think it can help you kind of get to the root problems to kind of overcome what those issues are or to at least just be aware of it so that you can force yourself to take action against it that’s good advice and that’s something you can do on your own or with the help of somebody else absolutely awesome is there anything else that you know just you think that the audience should know about either leadership training or maybe even your your work well I do think that leader skills is something everybody should do 99.9% of our people who have gone through the courses have said it’s something they’ll use for the rest of their life personally and professionally we have a money back guarantee no one’s taking us up on that I think that speaks volumes about the program itself but what I would just love to share in general with your listeners is speak up like if there’s anything I could ever say that I think you need to hear is please speak up because people like me need to hear it awesome I appreciate it thanks Holly G for being on the podcast it was great talking with you thank you very much it was great to be here at Energy Trust of Oregon we know it isn’t easy the tremendous weight of today’s operating costs working in cool drafty spaces within efficient heating systems or under lights that have seen brighter days but we also know how to help you upgrade those systems lower those costs and meet the demands of your business with smart energy efficient solutions find cash incentives at energy trust dot org energy trust of Oregon more power to you the bleacher report app is your destination 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