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.

Robust, high-quality conversation is linchpin to productive work relationships in high-performing teams, organizations and businesses. High-stress, fast-paced, action-oriented environments such as health care settings can predispose to communications that are quick, telescoped or truncated, easily leading to misunderstanding and breakdowns in relationships, teamwork, and organizational climate, all of which impact employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction.

Yet difficult conversations are a fact of life, no matter how skillful we are at communication. Typically we find ourselves with two unsatisfactory options: we are anxious and therefore take no action, which is costly, or we overcome our anxiety and take action but in an unhelpful way, which is also costly.

Generally what occurs is a cycle of non-agreement in which there is a strong conflict of views about what to do that is not expressed, leading to a compromise “agreement” or delay. What follows are non-existent, half-hearted or incompatible actions that generate lousy results and mutual blame. This then becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.

How do you actually change course of a difficult conversation, whereby both parties engage in new learning that leads to productive action? While many factors come into play, one foundational practice can profoundly shift course of a difficult conversation:

The Power of Empathic Listening