How Can Introverts Navigate A Toxic Work Environment? With Terrance Lee
Toxic Work Environment: A leader gets in the trenches with their team, puts their team first, and is always looking for opportunities to help people grow and succeed.
That&#;s not necessarily what it means. In my case, I didn&#;t want to do that presentation. There have been a lot of times where it&#;s a room full of people and I&#;m nervous. I&#;m like, &#;I don&#;t want to do this. I&#;d rather sit in the crowd and watch someone else do this.&#; I continue even now to push through those thoughts and moments. Every time I do it, I feel glad that I did it. I&#;m happy that I did it. I learned something from it and it&#;s a good experience. Even if I don&#;t do the best job in the world, I&#;m always learning with every single experience.
As an introvert, we have to find that balance between, “I&#;m going to be who I am. I&#;m going to be authentic. I&#;m introverted and I love that. At the same time, I&#;m going to look for times to push my boundary and step outside of my comfort zone. If I don&#;t want to speak up in a meeting, if I&#;m nervous, maybe I&#;m going to go ahead and speak up this time. I&#;m going to get that thought out to the world that I have. I&#;m going to add that value.” It&#;s being willing to step out of the comfort zone at times but balancing that with being authentic to who you are.
One thing to lift up here as it relates to introversion and extroversion is introversion is not necessarily meaning someone is a bad speaker or bad at speaking. They could be more talented than the &#;extroverted&#; folks, but it&#;s more so an inclination or an innate predisposition. I started as an introvert me. This is how I show up. That needs to be said because some people may make that assumption about others as we talk about introversion.
Being confident in general, that&#;s a big misperception also. It&#;s like, “Introvert means not confident or introvert means somebody can’t be a good speaker.” That&#;s complete nonsense. That&#;s not true. Some of the best I&#;ve ever met and heard were very introverted. That was their personality. I&#;m glad you said that.
Tell our readers a little bit about in situations where an individual has a toxic leader or work environment that they might not be meeting their needs, what can an introvert do to voice that? What are some things to think about? The answer would probably be similar to what an extrovert would do, but it&#;s going to take a little more for an introvert to do it. What advice would you have for them?
That can be a tough one because I know that sometimes those situations are uncomfortable because I&#;ve been there. I know those situations and what they are. I’d be honest and say that in the past, there are times that I was in toxic situations and I kept working through it and accepting it. Where I am now and what I would tell someone at this point is situations like that are going to take away your peace. You don&#;t want to stay in situations like that. The choice is to either stay in the situation and work through ways to correct it or to leave the situation. If you&#;re in a situation where you&#;re going to stay there, then there has to be some correction or change in course in the situation.
That can be done in a few ways. I&#;ve had to have some direct conversations with people on my team, not about the ways that I was being treated, but the way that I saw someone else being treated on my team. I had to have some tough conversations like that. Those conversations are uncomfortable. Some people don&#;t want to have them. As introverts, we have to value our peace and the peace of our situation over that discomfort. The best way to do it is to have very direct conversations, “Just so you know, when you said X, Y, Z or when you did this or that, that made me uncomfortable. I appreciate it if next time you can try to do this or that.&#;
Some people are completely closed off to changing. They&#;re set in their ways and they&#;re not going to hear you. There are a lot of other people that maybe they&#;ve never heard someone be honest and tell them that. You being direct and letting them know that, they might say, “I never even thought of it that way.” They&#;re going to appreciate the fact that you told them. That&#;s the two approaches. It&#;s having direct conversations because you don&#;t want to affect your peace. If the situation is so toxic and bad, the person is bullheaded and you know there is not going to be any resolution, then sometimes the best answer is to leave and go in a different direction.
Using that example that you gave out, let’s say you were in a work environment where every conversation or decision has to be a meeting, and you might want to contribute in a different way. Maybe have a one-on-one conversation, so it&#;s less extroverted, “Can we have a one-on-one conversation? Is there a way that I could submit my feedback before the meeting like ahead of time so I can get time to process it and think about it on my own versus having to brainstorm because I want to show up the way I want to?” That would be a great technique based on how you talked about that. What do you think?
That&#;s something that I do now. The other thing too with many introverts in our personalities, when we&#;re in these meetings settings where it tends to be more people, the brainstorming may be different than when I get to think to myself. I get to have that time to myself. Maybe I have a one-on-one conversation with the person that&#;s leading that meeting, and we talked through my thoughts in that way. A lot of times, I’ve had conversations with people on my team. When I talked to them and it’s just us talking, it&#;s amazing the thoughts that come out.
There are certain things that they&#;ll say or talk through and I&#;m like, “This person is sharp.” They get in a meeting setting and maybe they don&#;t say anything. It&#;s not that they&#;re not sharp and don&#;t have ideas. I know that probably more because I have a similar personality. People in the room or on Zoom call may assume, “That person has not a thing to add.” It&#;s not true. It’s just in different settings and we may operate in different ways. I agree with you on that.
The lesson learned here for leaders that you alluded to is leadership should try to get to know how their employees process best. One of the things about introversion and extroversion is that extroverts like alone time too. Introverts like people too. It&#;s what drains us and what gains us. It&#;s not like you&#;re unable to but as a leader, how can you find out how your employee processes best, and then how can you create an environment where they&#;re going to get their peace and be able to speak up when it&#;s comfortable, and how it&#;s comfortable for them? That&#;s a great exercise for leaders all across the country. Talking about introverts and those who are seeking to climb the corporate ladder, those who are seeking leadership positions and more from their work, how do you think introverts can excel at work? What are some things they can do and think about as it relates to their career?
Toxic Work Environment: Many leaders who have inclinations of toxic behavior tend to point out what you&#;re missing.
There are a few strengths that I believe introverts have that are an advantage to advance up the corporate ladder and make certain steps that oftentimes we don&#;t even think about. One thing is the gift of observation. This is one that I use all the time and people don&#;t even realize I&#;m doing it. As introverts, we&#;re natural thinkers a lot of times. When everyone else is talking and these conversations are going on, the feverish pitch and back and forth, we can be in those moments and observing everything that&#;s going on.A lot of times what I&#;ll do is I&#;ll sit in a meeting or I&#;ll be on a call and I&#;ll listen to all the different thoughts and the opinions on the things that are going on. I&#;m processing. That ability to process, observe and catch things that other people are missing and may not be thinking about is a strength. When you&#;re able to do that, you step in and you do say something, you do add your value, then that gets noticed. You start to get noticed as being that person that is observing and noticing things that are missed. I started to get that reputation and that was a big help.
There are other people I know that are introverted leaders that have done the exact same thing and that&#;s what they do. A very big key is using your introversion and your gift of observation as an advantage. Another thing that I&#;ll say is the ability to be calm under pressure. It&#;s not to say that every extrovert isn&#;t calm under pressure and every introvert is. In general, most introverted leaders that I&#;ve met in my career have the ability when everything is going bad and wrong to have a certain calmness. The way the leader is going to be is the way the team&#;s going to be.
If the leader is calm, then the team is going to be calm. I believe that having that calm personality helps people in their career and advance. That&#;s another one. Another thing, and this is something that anyone can do, it&#;s just effort. One thing that I&#;ve learned and noticed is whether you&#;re extroverted or introverted, whoever you are, if you&#;re the hardest worker in the room and has the most to contribute and is going all out for your team and the goal, then ultimately that gets noticed. Anyone can do that, whether introverted or extroverted. If you&#;re giving %, then you&#;re going to set yourself up to win at the end of the day. Those personality traits and then mixed with hard work ethic, that&#;s a big difference that can help you advance.
I love the fact that you&#;ve so eloquently illustrated how introversion can be viewed as a good thing because a lot of times, most of the leadership research looks at charisma. It&#;s charisma-driven like what a leader looks like and how they are able to influence others where there is power from an introverted perspective too. Thank you for lifting it up. You&#;re now my introversion guru because I don&#;t meet too many introverted leaders. That&#;s awesome. One of the things I&#;m thinking about is, what words of wisdom would you leave for our readers?
I&#;m going to go back to the authenticity. The reason that&#;s so big for me is that I personally struggled with it for so long. Realizing you are enough whatever your personality is. If you&#;re reading this and you&#;re introverted, you don&#;t have to be anyone else to be successful or to reach your goals. You have some unique skill or value to add to any situation. Focusing and honing in on that is so key. Never compare yourself to anyone else and what anyone else is doing.
You have power and strength, focus on that. That&#;s a big one. Tying into the theme of the show, if you are in a toxic environment or you find yourself around toxic leaders, realize that your peace is more important than that job or business. If it&#;s a toxic situation, it either has to get corrected or you have to get out because your peace is too important.
One of the things as an introvert, I want to ask you this, what is your ideal method of recharging for yourself? What do you do?
I&#;ve got a routine. The best morning for me is getting to wake up and run. I love getting a good running and then reading a book. For me, that charges me up for the day. As far as recharging, let&#;s say I&#;m around a bunch of people or some social event and I want to get away, again, reading. It&#;s a big escape for me. I&#;ve been like that since I was a kid. I love to read. Writing is the other one. Those are big things that help me to recharge.
I wanted to ask you that because I wanted people to know that you have a thing. I do too. Mine is working out as well. It feels weird when you don&#;t do it. You&#;re off that whole day or week. For the words of wisdom piece, I wanted to add, we should all solidify our recharge whatever our rituals are as introverts. Extroverts need to do it too. As introverts, you talk so much about inner peace because that&#;s a thing that we value. It&#;s a tangible thing for a lot of introverts, that inner peace. I wanted to lift that up in this part too. Where can we find you? How can we reach you on social media? What else are you working on that we should know about?
I&#;m on Instagram, @TheIntrovertLeader, Twitter, @IntrovertLead. I also have a book that&#;s out, Quiet Voice Fearless Leader: 10 Principles For Introverts To Awaken The Leader Inside. That&#;s available on Amazon. If you go to my website directly, goalma.org, it&#;s available there in paperback and eBook. I&#;m also on TikTok, @TheIntrovertLeader.
I want to thank you, Terrance, for having this conversation with me.
I appreciate you. This has been great. I&#;m glad you had me on the show. This was a lot of fun.
Thank you all for reading.
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