A Bumper Crop of Introverts

So far 2012 is shaping up to be a great year for introverts.  First, author and former corporate lawyer Susan Cain all but hijacked the communal conversation with her book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking." Cain's message is perhaps quite timely: the ego-maniacal show-off personality so successful in the 24/7 news cycle is not the type of person who is likely to contribute all that much to the advancement of human-kind. Cain urges us all to spend more time alone - not social networking (which is computer simulated extroversion for introverts)- but actually thinking, creating, contemplating. She's got a veritable introvert hall-of-fame to prove her point:  Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Frederic Chopin, Charles Darwin, Marcel Proust--all people who'd rather stay home than walk the red carpet.  And now along come two more quiet heroes to add to her list.

Introverts make good leaders because they are more likely to let talented employees run with their ideas.

Complacent or introverted?

This weekend athletic introvert Eli Manning takes center stage again, quiet and unassuming. His father, Archie Manning, says, "I have always heard them saying "Eli doesn't care. Eli cares, he just doesn't worry." Manning has been critiized for being complacent and compliant, when really he's just rather polite and not into the spotlight. "He's calm and not outward, he doesn't holler and scream," says Archie.

When Eli was asked this week if he thought getting to the Superbowl for a second time would cement his legacy, he insisted he wasn't thinking about that. He told The Washington Post, “I’m thinking about this team and this opportunity and how proud I am of the guys and what we both have overcome this year and what we have been through. I just never had any doubts and just kept believing.” Classic introvert leadership; according to Cain, introverts make good leaders because they are more likely to let talented employees run with their ideas. Introverts make good leaders precisely because they believe the world does not revolve around them.

And finally, there's the Facebook IPO, from which untold riches will go to Mark Zuckerberg about whom not much is known beyond the fictional character in The Social Network. What is a matter of record is that he lives in an unassuming house with a girlfriend he met in college, and besides being renowned for his success as a computer programmer he was notably in the news for giving a couple of hundred million dollars to the Newark, New Jersey public school system.  Introverts can recognize a kindred spirit in Zuckerberg, and perhaps rejoice at his quiet, spectacular triumph.