Political Dilemmas at Work: How to Maintain Your Integrity and Further Your Career

Make Networking an Integral Part of Your Work

A frequent defense against building up a wider base of allies and key relationships is often to suggest that you are just not good at it. Perhaps you shy away from networking and other social aspects of organizational life because you feel uncomfortable. The claim is that extroverted types are much better at it than introverted types. Maybe you think your personality is just not cut out for networking, so why should you bother. You create built-in failure patterns in your thinking, which need to be challenged.

It is only partially true that extroverts have it easy. The concerns cited by introverted types are, in the main, concerns that extroverts also hold—fear of rejection, being boring, or overbearing. The difference is that the extroverts just get on with it. The advantage that introverts have is that they spend more time listening than talking and often get appreciated for this. Introverts notice what is not being said and are better at noticing nonverbal clues. Introverts often gain a better insight by picking up the inadvertent and subtle signals in communication. Introverted types spend more time thinking about what to say next and so make fewer mistakes and therefore maintain rapport better. The bottom line is that introverts may feel uncomfortable networking but their skills and approach can give them an advantage over extroverts. Networking is for everyone, no excuses.

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