The rules of success are shifting – fast. And the traits introverts were once told to “fix” are turning out to be the very ones the future demands.
In this solo episode of The Ambitious Introvert®, I’m unpacking why deep thinkers, calm communicators, and emotionally intelligent leaders are becoming the real power players in today’s evolving world of work and business.
You’ll hear:
- Why the “fast-talking, always-on” leadership style is losing its edge
- The key mindset shift introverts need to stop adapting and start thriving
- What true high performance looks like when speed and visibility aren’t enough
- How to leverage your natural wiring for strategic advantage – without faking extroversion
If you’ve ever felt out of step with outdated career advice, or like the game was never built for your brain… this one’s for you.
This episode is brought to you by Cozy Earth. To save a massive 40% on their introvert-friendly bedding and loungewear visit https://cozyearth.com and use the code INTROVERT
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There’s no denying the fact that the next era of work is absolutely made for introverts. We’re now entering a time where the skills that no one used to measure or even care about are actually becoming the most essential. An unnatural edge as an introvert, such as deep thinking, emotional steadiness and the ability to stay grounded and present, is actually no longer optional. It is the future of work. And as they say, the future started yesterday. So join me in this solo episode where I’m going to share four really important observations that I’ve made through my work over the last six months, both with clients, with other experts and consultants, with futurists, with keynote speakers, with human resources departments, and share with you what I think are the four biggest takeaways as introverts that we need to take into this next era of work, whether that is in a job or as a business owner.
Welcome to the ambitious Introvert, the leading growth and development podcast for the estimated 56% of us who recharge by going inwards. Our ah purpose is to help you manage your social battery and own your energy so you can reach your true potential in your business, your career or your life. I’m your host, Emma Louise Parks, a former air traffic controller, entrepreneur and a success Coach with over 15 years experience. I’ve supported hundreds of introverts like you who dream big and are ready to take action towards making those dreams a reality without compromising their energy in the process. Each week my guests and I will be sharing tips, tricks and hacks on how to build your resilience, master your mindset and cultivate self leadership skills that will help you reach your goals without trying to be someone that you’re not.
We’ll also be sharing valuable lessons and insights from our own personal experiences, all focused on one thing. Helping you own your, your energy to reach your potential. Never has there been a time in history where such rapid change has been apparent in such a short period of time. And every decade really, if we look since the new technologies that came out after and because of World War II, every decade has grown exponentially in the rate of change. Because of technology, because of society. But now where we’re at, if I Look at this mid 2020s era, even the difference from when I started this business in 2019, when I look at the difference of some of the industries that my clients work in, the changes and the shifts because of AI, because of automation, because of political instability, because of the world we live in, their changes are insane. And they are Coming thick and fast. And there is no reason to think that that is gonna change or slow down.
So if you are a high achiever, high performer, and you are looking to go places in your career, or if you’re a business owner, and you understand that you need to keep up because things change so rapidly, then, I’m gonna be sharing four observations that I’ve made in the last six months or so that really solidify to me that introversion is the way of the future. And you’re probably thinking finally, like, it’s our moment in the sun. And I do think it absolutely is. I think that there are so many traits that we have as introverts that just naturally lend us to this period of work. Even though it’s uncertain, it’s unstable, it’s fast moving. You may think, hey, O, that doesn’t sound too much fun. But the thing is, everyone is in the same boat. Introvert, extrovert, ambiver, whatever. Everyone has to deal with this. And if you can get ahead, if you can understand what might be coming, and even if you don’t know what’s coming, if you can put yourself in a position to be resilient and able to deal with that change and adapt, you are going to be the most employable, the most hireable person and you’re going to be able to perform sustainably. Which is a huge point that I’m going to talk about as well.
Okay, so I’m just going to get on with this. My first observation is that the type of leadership we have seen in the past, especially from the 90s, the very male driven, extroverted leadership, is actually becoming a liab in the current workplace. Environments are now getting increasingly complex and attention spans are decreasing. Thanks social media and TikTok. But because of that, this kind of performative, loud leadership actually falls apart. Because what you end up with are very reactive teams, fragmented decision making that doesn’t really lead anywhere, and essentially poor resilience because people are in that reactive state all the time.
Recent research from McKinsey found that in what they call high change environments, and this is a direct quote from them, calm, consistent communication from leadership is one of the top predictors of team effectiveness. I’ll say that again, Calm, consistent communication from leadership. So that leads to more effective teams. In the past it was believed that, having a charismatic leader or a very fast leader or a very visible leader, was the thing that helped. But now we’re understanding it’s the quality, the calmness and the consistency of how Leadership, communicate with others. That has the biggest impact on how teams work. Huge. We’ve all seen managers who think that being visible is the same as being present. But you know they’re there. They might be walking the shop floor, they might be talking the talk, but not actually present with the team.
Also the people that look very confident, which can be a double edged sword because then it can be very, very difficult to question those people or give them an opinion that’s different to theirs when actually that confidence was mixed up with just volume, they were just the loudest and therefore appeared the most confident.
And what I think is going to happen now is people are not going to follow that noise, they’re going toa follow clarity because we are all craving clarity when so many crazy things are going on and there are so many changes to the world, to technology, to our jobs. We don’t want to hear more noise, we want to be able to follow someone that we trust. And so the best leaders during times of uncertainty are the ones who literally embody stability.
Not the people that talk the best talk or give the best words but the people who project that grounded calmness that people really, really need right now. So that is my first observation. Leadership is changing to be more favoured to introverts. My second observation, and possibly my favourite emotional intelligence, presence and discernment are gonna be the skills that are critical in the future and actually it’s already happening so I don’t know why I’m talking about it like the future. There was a report in the World’s Economic Forum’s future of jobs and it actually ranks emotional intelligence, active learning and complex problem solving in the top 10 skills for 2025. So emotional intelligence, active learning and complex problem solving.
So as an introvert you may recognise a lot of that in yourself. We do love to learn, we love to research, we love to understand things deeply. We are naturally emotionally intelligent and when we learn how to harness that, things like ah, our empathy can be such a powerful skill and complex problem solving complex. You know people going inwards to actually take time to consider patterns and long term outcomes, not instant shout the answer out problem solving like they’re looking for these deeper skills that we all naturally have. And none of these require people to be loud. What they actually require is the self awareness to understand that you have them and the ability to remain calm under pressure so that you can utilise them in a way that is effective.
Now I have a client at the moment who is in a very, very niche industry and A very niche sector of that industry who is seeking other roles or promotion. And they need very, very specific certifications and qualifications to be able to do the job that they do. And as they were looking around to see what was out there in the job market, they were shocked to see one list 10 specifically ask for emotional intelligence. Because in that industry they never talked about things like that. It was always, you needed to have these certifications, you needed to have this degree, you needed to, have worked with this software. And suddenly things like emotional intelligence are being explicitly asked for in a job listing. And this is becoming the norm.
If you are a business owner, your potential clients and customers are now more discerning than ever before and they have more options than ever before because of the Internet. And smart buyers these days are taking much, much longer to make large investments. And when they do, it’s in companies and people that they feel safe with.
And that safety comes from that emotional intelligence, and that presence. Now, a Talent Smart study also found that emotional intelligence accounts for 58% of job performance across all types of roles, and that 90% of top performers scored high in emotional intelligence, which shouldn’t be a surprise to us, but because it’s one of those, I’m gonna say, soft skills that’s been overlooked for so long in favour of bigger, and louder. I think it’s really important to see that this has been not only recognised now in the workplace, but actually requested and understood to be something that is vital, especially when working alongside AI, because AI can throw out anything very, very quickly, give you a lot of information. But can it solve complex problems? No. Does it have deep emotional intelligence?
No. That is literally where introverts are going to come in and plug the gap and help us to utilise these amazing softwares, but in a way that is more than surface level. So, for instance, introverts often beat themselves up for needing more time to process. That’s a conversation I’ve probably had, probably over 50 times in this business alone, because they feel like they should be answering quickly. The person that answers first looks, looks better, they look keener, they look like they’re more switched on. All of these things. If you’re not speaking up, it means that you, you’re not engaged or you don’t have anything to add to the conversation.
But actually, in the era of artificial intelligence, this rapid reaction is actually less valuable because we can just type it into chat GPT and get the same thing. It’s gonna be the person who can pause and reflect and Offer the right insight that isnna be more trusted than the person that just comes up with the first answer. So that is my second observation and as I say, probably my favourite. As a highly ambitious and highly sensitive introvert, I’m sure it doesn’t surprise you that I don’t just like things that work well. I like things that work well and are beautiful. So whether it’s skincare technology or my bedding, I want performance and luxury at the same time without compromise. That is why I genuinely love my Cosy Earth sheets.
They’re made from viscose from bamboo, which means they naturally wick away heat and moisture, allow me to sleep several degrees cooler. They feel silky without being slippy, smooth without having a weird sheen on them. They just feel elevated. During this summer, these have changed the game for me. I wake up better, I perform better, and if like me, you value efficiency, and a bit of indulgence, you will totally understand what I mean. Cosy earth give you 100 nights to try their sheets risk free and a 10 year warranty which tells you how confident they are in them and rightly so. Head over to cozyearth.com and use the code Introvert for a massive 40% off. That’s cozyearth.com, the code Introvert for 40% off. Your bed should be more than just a place to sleep. It should be your happy place.
And Cosy Earth makes that possible. Observation number three. Introverts have had to adapt to what we are now recognising our outdated models of leadership and workplace hierarchy. Instead, we can now start to double down on how we are naturally wired. So it’s not about learning how to be more extroverted. It’s not about finding skills to fit into a certain role that wants you to be something that you’re not.
I mean, I would say this year alone, I wish I counted this, but I think off the top of my head, at least five applications to work with me as a coach came from people who said I’m in a role that’s very extroverted and I don’t think I’ve got the right skills or I need to change my skill set, or I’m about to be promoted or about to step into a role that requires me to be more extroverted. And actually of the people that I worked with in that they didn’t need to change their skill set, they needed to change their mindset and reframe how they saw their skill set and how they could be valuable and what they deemed as introverted and extroverted traits as such.
So they have been able to work with the way they are, the way they naturally are, the way we innately are. So, you know, speak up more, do more networking, fake it till you make it. all of these things are actually inefficient for introverts because they drain our energy. And as you can probably see from the first two observations, strategically the best thing you can do right now is learn how to be more yourself, learn and value what you have to bring and own that and work with that. So deep listening will now be seen as someone with better insight, someone taking time to thoughtfully consider or take a pause is seen as better decision making, not slower.
And energy management, you know, huge, huge buzzword. I’ve been talking about energy for years, but it is a huge buzzword now because companies are realising, or if you’re a business owner, you will be realising that we can’t just go all out and give everything forever. There is a time when we will have exhausted ourselves and actually when we manage our energy efficiently and we can perform sustainably over the long haul, that is what is going toa be relevant in the future of work. Okay, and my fourth and final observation is reframing what high performance actually means for the future. And I think this is an interesting one because high performance can sound a little bit masculine. It can sound a little bit like it’s something athletes would do.
It can sound a little broy, like in the biohacking sphere. And I think that gives it a bad rep. So I looked for a reference or a quote or a description that I felt was aligned with how IC see high performance for myself and my clients. And this is from Dr. Sandra Chapman, who’s the director, of the Centre for brain Health. And she defines high performance as the ability to think strategically, resist distraction and make smart trade offs. So if we look at that for the present and the future, think strategically, yes. Not think instantly, but think strategically, resist distraction. It’s huge. It is huge. It is something that I think I work with every single client on. About social media, about notifications, about being able to focus and do deep work, about resisting shiny objects syndrome, about staying in their lane with what they’re doing, about setting boundaries.
All of these things are gold in the future of the workplace because most people cannot resist distraction. If you are able to, you are, way ahead, you’re way ahead of the curve already. And then lastly, she said to make smart trade offs, it’s understanding that there’s always a compromise. So it’s not just about doing more and more and more, which is what the rap that I think high performance can get. But it’s about doing the things that matter and saying no thank you to the things that don’t.
So it’s not about trying to keep up with everyone else and you keep up with how the extroverts are doing it and trying to be, you know, like everyone else in the team. It’s about knowing what’s worth keeping up with and choosing to put your energy into that. Things in the workplace are getting increasingly complex and, there’s more cognitive load on people than ever, both in the workplace and at home. And we’re all glued to our phones for various reasons because you can’t even park the car or pay for anything without getting it out these days.
And so we need to balance that with this discernment and clarity about what’s actually important. What do I want to be doing, what do I need to be working on? So if we can cultivate that ability to stay grounded under pressure and to see the patterns that other people don’t see from a strategic way and then make really intentional decisions about where we are gonna spend our time and energy and where our focus is, that is what is going to enable us to really win in this next era of work, which I’m very excited about, you can probably tell.
So I would love to know if this episode resonated with you. Is the future something that you think about? I know for my clients and a lot of ambitious introverts, it is because they have a very clear picture of what they want to do and what they want to achieve. And so when things are shaky and unstable and changing really rapidly, that can feel really disconcerting for them because maybe they made a five year plan and they’re 18 months into it and they go, whoa. Things feel quite a lot different than I expected they would now.
And that is why I have put together my first mastermind in, I think, two and a half years. It is called Introvert 2.0 and it is an eight week small group mastermind which will help you stop playing this game that wasn’t built for you, and stop building a new way of working that is absolutely essential to the future, whether you are in the workplace or whether you have your own business. What we’re going to do inside Introvert two point, zero is train for the traits that actually matter now and for the future. So energy, intelligence, emotional range, deep self trust, so that you can lead, contribute and really, and I don’t always like to use this word but I think it’s relevant and thrive without having to compromise against who you are and really be very naturally aligned to the workplace of the future and also to create in the future that you want and to have the ability to do that.
So as well as weekly core curriculum which is going to lead you on the journey through this, there are also group Q and A sessions each week and there’s also three one on one coaching sessions with me. So this makes this a very, very high touch, personalised experience because I want you to be able to work on your development for the future in a way that’s meaningful to you. If you would like more details, pop to the Show Notes. There is a link there.
The first cohort begins next month, begins in September. So if anything I’ve said in this has really got you thinking, if anything has resonated, if you’re already feeling this change around us with AI, with automation, with know, higher complexity and more pressure in the workplace, and you are someone that cares about your performance, not just now, but in the future, then please go and check out Introvert 2.0 because it could be exactly the thing that you need. Like I say, we kick off in September for the first cohort, to wrap up in time for the holidays. Meaning that you can go into next year in a very clear, very grounded, confident, emotionally regulated state to create.
Create whatever you want. Thank you so much for tuning in and I will be back in a few weeks with another episode of the ambitious Introvert Podcast. I’m Emma Louise. Thank you for listening. Thank you for tuning in into this week’s episode. I hope that you’re feeling expanded to what’s possible for you, motivated to take action and inspired about how you can start to own your energy. I share even more tools and resources on my Introverts only email newsletter. By signing up, you not only get early access to the ambitious Introvert products and services, but you also get brand new podcast episodes delivered straight to your inbox every Monday, meaning you’ll never miss your weekly dose of introvert friendly inspiration. Sign up now at theambitiousintrovert.com newsletter or click the link in the show notes. See you next week.
