When an executive moves up
hierarchal ladder in organization, promotion is often accompanied by an increasing sense of isolation and loneliness. Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee coined phrase “CEO disease” to describe isolation of top executives in their book Primal Leadership. It refers to an information vacuum around leaders, created when people withhold important and sometimes unpleasant information.Life is indeed lonely at top. People may appear more reluctant to share information, staff members may be less forthcoming about emerging issues, and colleagues don’t engage as openly in dialogue. As executives struggle to make sense of this loneliness, it is important to understand how personality preferences for extraversion and introversion contribute to a leader’s isolation.
The psychiatrist, Carl Jung, observed that people have a preference for introversion or extraversion. Extraverts prefer to direct their energy to and draw energy from external world whereas introverts prefer to direct their energy to and draw energy from internal world. Each preference has its’ own strengths and pitfalls, which play out in communication styles and habits.
Extraverted leaders are drawn to interact with external world and to bounce ideas off people. They tend to make quick decisions and move into action, sometimes before enough time for reflection and analysis. They often think out loud, and share ideas without forethought. Thus, there is more transparency with extraverts - what you see is what you get.
They like to bring people together to explore issues. However, extraverted executive may overwhelm and intimidate people, push ideas prematurely, and unintentionally reveal confidences. When ideas are leaked or taken as decisions rather than mere brainstorming possibilities, executive feels betrayed. The extravert may then stop sharing information and self-impose a cautious isolation.
