When Noise Meets Quiet: Reflections on Leadership, Extroversion, and Trust

Dear Friends,

Last week, I promised to share my reflections from the annual event I attend each June in Boulder, Colorado.

To uphold that pledge, I have posted here a piece that formed from the inspiration I took away from the Keepers of the Flame gathering.

I chose the beach picture because it feels like a part of the world where, just as the ocean meets the infinite horizon, the clamor of the seashore, with the sounds of wind and waves and shorebirds calling seems to fade to a quietness that allows me to think and reflect on the things that mean the most to me.

I will also publish a second essay tomorrow with my reflections about the event itself.

Wishing you well and a happy Fourth of July weekend for those of us here in the USA.

prl

When Noise Meets Quiet: Reflections on Leadership, Extroversion, and Trust

I am an extrovert. It isn’t just that I recognize this, but I have come to celebrate this aspect of myself and have refined my approach to the world by taking care to do my best to ensure that this doesn’t get between me and the people my ego wants to impress. 

Years ago, as I was learning my craft as a coach, I was introduced to the idea that this personality trait is fundamentally about being quick to trust people, rather than being about my need for attention. I found this interesting because I knew that I also needed attention to hide beneath the fritzy insecurities that I had become an expert at disguising. Beginning in my early teens, I recall a dozen or more things I felt insecure about, like most teenagers do. But being effusive with my words and having a natural ability to express myself and easily find, and even invent, the vocabulary to do so, I could easily hide behind the wall of syllables I would build around myself.

 It was easy for people to confuse me with someone who had natural leadership ability. Making myself visible was a way of actually making myself invisible. Rather than being vulnerable, I could easily create a narrative to define what I considered to be the most desirable version of myself. People would follow me because I looked like a leader to them, not because I possessed any of the qualities I now understand to be essential for leaders to perform effectively.

Leadership is a performing art. You cannot be a leader without an audience, even if that’s just one person. Leadership requires influencing more than just yourself. While each of us decides how we lead our lives, our behavior isn’t leadership until we become valuable to the world around us. That is why what looked like leadership in my behavior failed the acid test.

When I take a step back and think about the most effective leaders I‘ve known, many of them were quiet people. Their actions and accomplishments spoke loudly, but so did their humility. It was their emotional intelligence that made them effective and valuable to others. Quiet people tend to make less noise than the rest of us - and there has never been a more critical time than now to quiet the noise that seemingly surrounds everything.

One thing I value most about being an extrovert is that I trust people more easily. The challenges we face today make trusting the world around us more difficult and perilous than I remember from my childhood. The reason I tend to be quieter is because I've learned to discern what’s genuinely necessary and focus on what’s possible by ignoring and being mindful not to add to the noise. And the attention I seek today is about my desire to be a positive influence on the people that my life touches.

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