Extraversion and Conscientiousness

Will and I read an article about leadership and women and he and I saw similar things in it. Will works as a leader in a national sorority. I saw the same things in the articles that he did. Like him I found a touchpoint in my own life. 

In his discussion, he talked about the characteristics of extraversion and conscientiousness and the benefits of each to leadership or working in general. 

My wife is a very successful businesswoman. She is the director of application development for Microsoft Teams app. She's been in business, internet boom, software development, project management, and business administration for a software organization. It was this last one, just prior to the application development position, that she found the most challenging. She was asked to perform roles that were closer and closer to the C-level suite . . . working more and more as a COO. 

She despised this aspect of work. The more she provided these higher-profile leadership positions, the more she disliked her work. She's always been incredibly conscientious so when I read your quote about these two types of women, I naturally thought of her as the "conscientious" one. My wife has an MBA, a PMP, has been through career coaching and leadership coaching, and is incredibly successful in her career. 

As good as she might be at leading, as much as many people might ask her to, the more she realizes that she doesn't enjoy it. She and I are of like minds. I was a COO for a small construction company and when I look back on my career, that's the position that I disliked the most. Even now, if someone asked me to lead here at my present organization I would do it out of loyalty, but not because it is something I would like to do. We've come to terms with our being introverts. We eschew the cocktail parties and the dinner parties, but more than that we also fade away from the spotlight instead of seeking it out. 

So, yep I saw these two same things from my own wife's career and enjoyed that article for the same reason. I think to bring this back to your post, I think that there is a balance that can be struck and potential trained for conscientious workers to become more extraverted. However, I also believe that in some cases people, like water, find their level and enjoy the positions that suit their personalities most.