I love letting my dog play unleashed at the dog park.
But giving him this freedom requires paying attention to many things. For example, the other dogs running, jumping, and playing – the play especially can get rough. This is part of the fun, of course, but I have to keep an eye on the situation.
Specifically, I need to be:
- Observant: so I know what’s going on and what potential problems could emerge
- Patient: so I can give the dogs a chance to explore and figure things out on their own
- Perceptive: so I understand when things are okay and when I have to intervene
When I master these skills, I effectively fade into the background. My dog doesn’t notice how I’ve created space for him to have fun, and I only step in when strictly necessary.
As an EM, your team members are not dogs. But some managers do want to control their team members the same way some people want to control their dogs. This is a quick way to make everyone miserable.
Instead, stay aware of what’s happening around you and understand when you need to intervene. And luckily for you as an introverted EM, you have many gifts that make this management style easier. Here’s what they are.
You reflect before acting
Imagine you’re in a room with colleagues when a crisis happens. Everyone panics and runs toward the only door instead of evacuating in an orderly fashion. People push past each other, creating a blockage that makes leaving even harder.
If you’ve been a manager for a while, you’ve seen this metaphorical situation at work more times than you can count. Some crisis happens, and some managers try to respond right away. They make decisions without having all the information, and this leads to a suboptimal plan that often causes more issues.
As an introverted EM, you’re less likely to jump to conclusions or act immediately when you see a situation. That’s because you often pause before making a decision. You take a second look and, in my experience, make better decisions 99% of the time because of that pause and second look.
You let people sort things out for themselves
As you may know, Chinese philosopher Sun Tsu wrote The Art of War. There, he said if you sit by the river long enough, you’ll see the body of your enemy float by.
Thankfully, managing engineers is about as far from engaging in warfare as it is from treating them like dogs. But the nugget of wisdom here is the same in war as it is in engineering management:
- Wait
- Bide your time
- And sometimes your problems will solve themselves
So, imagine you’re sitting in a meeting, and two engineers begin fighting. You can step in immediately, or you can wait just a bit longer to see if they figure it out on their own.
In my experience, the better option is not jumping in right away. When you do, you encourage your team to rely on you for solutions. It becomes impossible for them to handle situations on their own. But what you want as an EM are team members who take initiative with creative, collaborative solutions.
As an introvert, not stepping in right away is easier for you – you’re more patient in this way. You keep an eye on the situation as it develops and only intervene to make sure things don’t get out of hand.
You allow people to learn from their mistakes
As I mentioned above, one way to approach conflict is to step in when necessary. But another way is to let the disagreement turn into a full fight and then let people learn from that mistake.
When thinking about this, my dog again comes to mind, perhaps because I spend so much enjoyable time with him.
When we moved to Lisbon, he tried to drink salt water from the ocean and thought the sand was as edible as the snow back home. I could have yelled and kept him away from the beach (good luck with that, knowing my dog), but I let him try for himself. As you can imagine, he didn’t try again.
This happens every day at work. People often only learn things the hard way. And managers can choose to try to teach them through words and actions or let them make their own mistakes and draw conclusions from there.
For example, I was at a retrospective meeting once, and there was a small fight. I could have stepped in and told them to stop, but they wouldn’t have learned anything. I’d seen them like this before, so I intentionally let them fight in front of the whole team.
Afterward, I went up to each and said, “Hey, you just lost control in front of the whole team. That’s not acceptable. Your teammates are disappointed.” They got the point and felt foolish for losing control.
As an introvert, you’ll likely feel less inclined to intervene when there’s a crisis like this, and I encourage you to lean into it. So long as it doesn’t totally disrupt what it is that you’re doing, you can let your team members make and learn from their mistakes. And, of course, help them to figure out what those mistakes are in case they’re struggling to see them themselves.
You don’t hog the spotlight
Many of us have this idea that being good at our jobs means being busy. Plenty of engineers think they have to put in long hours and suffer to advance at work.
There’s a slight variation on this with managers. It’s that we think we’re not doing enough if we don’t manage our teams with a heavy hand. We ask ourselves: what kind of manager am I if people can get by without me?
This can lead some managers to take center stage at work. Everything has to pass through them, which creates an awful and ineffective bottleneck.
Eventually, the team will get used to the micromanagement. And then what happens when the manager goes on vacation? Or, as is likely to happen, burns out?
Good management is much closer to good design. It improves an experience but should itself be unseen.
Alternatively, think of it as striving to be like a stage director or football coach: indispensable but invisible. Ultimately, they help actors and players make decisions for themselves on the stage or field.
Introverts like you have an edge on this. You’re less interested in getting in people’s faces. You have a limited social battery and so are more invested in helping people figure things out for themselves rather than relying on you.
You understand there’s always a choice
I’ve been doing martial arts for a while now. I was taught that we easily fall into the illusion that we’re automatically entangled in the stressful situations around us and there’s no escape. It showed me that, in reality, it’s a choice to become involved.
My master highlighted that we are separate from the world. Our selves are also separate from our bodies.
For instance, when you’re hurt, you’re not really hurt – it’s just your body that’s hurt. You don’t have to shout or scream or fall if you don’t want to. That’s your body’s automatic reaction, not yours.
I feel like this is closer to how introverts see the world. We perceive a bit more distance between us and it – we don’t rush to involve ourselves in things. Which makes us less reactive in hot situations.
When we lean into this gift as managers, we react less quickly and quickly realize certain forms of engagement are choices, not automatic. We don’t have to pour oil onto metaphorical fires, and we can instead find ways to bring water.
The short version: work the stage from behind the curtain
Some people think managers need to take center stage and loudly direct their team members in their work. But introverted managers prefer to do their work invisibly, in the background. This has many benefits that you can tap into as an introverted EM (or may already be).
These include:
- Reflecting before acting: You take the time to consider a situation and the people in it before making a decision, typically resulting in a better one.
- Letting people sort things out for themselves: You only intervene when absolutely necessary, ensuring problems don’t become unmanageable and helping people to rely on themselves.
- Allowing people to learn from their mistakes: You let people learn the hard way, which is, in many ways, the best and only way to do so. You also step in to help them learn when they need it.
- Not hogging the spotlight: Because your social battery drains quicker, you, again, help people to become more independent.
- Understanding you have choices: You understand that not all things are inevitable, including your involvement or decisions in them. You know there are different choices you can make.
Of course, these gifts can make it easier to overthink or overanalyze as well, which is definitely a downside of being an introvert. But learning to embrace your natural tools without becoming paralyzed by them gives you a powerful edge in the EM role.
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Originally published on Medium.com
Content in this blog post by Alex Ponomarev is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
