Should the ability to socially network be a necessity to become manager?

Just 50% of the population are extroverts however 96% of managers and executives display extroverted personalities. A recent study by Deniz Ones and Stephan Dilchert of 4,000 managers across US corporations shows that there is a correlation between being an extrovert and your rank as a manager in an organization. They found in ascending order of responsibility level the following amount of extroverts:

Supervisors 30%

First-line managers 36%

Mid-level managers 41%

Executives 52%

Top-level executives 60%

As defined by Wikipedia.org, extroverts “tend to enjoy human interactions“ and introverts “tend to be more reserved, less outgoing, and less sociable”. The data suggests that in real life, people with social networking capabilities get more often chosen to become managers by superiors or boards of directors. Is this in the best interest of a company?

Brian J Dunn, CEO of Best Buy would say yes, as he is a vivid proponent of social networking as a major success factor for business. “If a company, or even its chief executive, doesn’t have a presence on social networks today, that company risks not being in the conversation at all. Over time, I believe, that can be fatal to a business.” Brian states that having a “deep” conversation with customers and employees are prerequisites of a deep relationship and the key to success. As CEO he states he needs to be part of this discussion to stay close to the market his company is active in. This becomes the more important as todays buying decisions in the consumer market are often crowdsourced i.e. heavily influenced on social networks. Further, social networking makes sure top-level executives stay in touch with employees, who are not their direct inferiors and with whom they would usually not be in touch with. For example in a direct conversation with employees from one of Best Buy’s stores through his twitter account, he learned how she and her colleague were doing a good job in supporting US soldiers in Iraq. Best Buy made a movie to demonstrate best practice support of soldiers from the Best Buy community, to built internal moral. Brian would have not been aware of this story, without his social networking.

A study by Adam M. Grant, Francesca Gino and David A. Hofmann shows however that in dynamic and unpredictable environments, introverts are often more effective leaders. This particularly holds true, when workers are proactive and offer ideas for improving the business. As extrovert leaders tend to command the center of attention and take over discussions, such behavior makes them feel threatened. In comparison to that, introverts as managers are more open to suggestions and listen more carefully. This makes them more effective leaders in situation of vocal teams. In one of their field studies with 130 franchises of a U.S. pizza delivery company, they assessed how proactive employees and how extroverted / introverted the managers are. Adjusting for variables like location of the pizza delivery, their result showed that in stores, where employees were not very proactive, extroverted leadership was associated with 16% higher profits than average. On the other hand in stores, where employees were pro-active, extroverted leadership was associated with 14% lower profits. The same result appeared in a controlled lab experiment, where college students were grouped in different constellations and scenarios. The student groups with an introverted leader and proactive followers performed better, folding on average, 28% more T-shirts than the student groups with an extroverted leader and proactive followers. The extroverted leaders appeared threatened by their inferiors and unreceptive to their suggestions. Introverted leaders listened carefully and made employees feel valued, motivating them to work hard. Adam, Francesca and David effectively argue therefore that superiors and board of directors should therefore no longer necessarily trust manager roles to extrovert, who have the ability to socially network but rather make their choice of an introvert or extrovert leader dependent on the people they have to manage.

In my mind a role model manager has the strength of both an extrovert and an introvert. A good manager therefore has the ability to socially network and participate in discussions outside his immediate comfort zone. S/he at the same time is self secure enough to deal with pro-active inferiors. When working sometime ago as a junior financial analyst on an initial public offering of a €2,500m market cap company, I got inspired by such a character. The CEO was calm, friendly and open to suggestions. In many meetings I experienced how he welcomed and attended to suggestions from inferiors. At the same time he was known for his high social networking abilities, being a sales “star” on the investor roadshow later on in the process – one of the most important abilities in such a public offering processes. He had however one further quality: he knew “his” business and he knew what he wanted. He wanted to have his company portrait well with the relevant information presented to potential investors in a timely fashion to make the time schedule of the project. With these prerequisites, he was able to value the suggestions he received and accept or decline them on sound reasoning. I therefore conclude that an ideal manager should be both, extroverted with social networking abilities but able to cope with pro-active inferiors. Based on my experience, this person however needs as a foundation a clear understanding, of what he is doing and where he would like to get.

Sources:

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extroversion_and_introversion

2) How special are executives?, Industrial and organizational psychology, 2009

3) The Hidden Advantages of Quiet Bosses, Harvard Business Review December 2010

4) Best Buy’s CEO on Learning to Love Social Media, Harvard Business Review December 2010

5) Own empirical evidence

Thank you to Hyunsoo for his pointer to the Best Buy CEO article.