School is done and I've commuted to my birth town to be here for two weeks. For family and for people I ordinarily would not see, I am here for those people. But I also had another motivation for coming back, and that was to come to my community college here in California to read one book inside and out since I cannot find it elsewhere that I can commute to at the moment. The title of this book is Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain.
In reading more of this book today I came across this passage:
"Grant says it makes sense that introverts are uniquely good at leading initiative-takers. Because of their inclination to listen to others and lack of interest in dominating social situations, introverts are more likely to hear and implement suggestions. Having benefited from the talents of their followers, they are then likely to motivate them to be even more proactive. Introverted leaders create a virtuous circle of proactivity, in other words. In the T-shirt-folding study, the team members reported perceiving the introverted leaders as more open and receptive to their ideas, which motivated them to work harder and to fold more shirts.
Extroverts, on the other hand, can be so intent on putting their own stamp on events that they risk losing others' good ideas along the way and allowing workers to lapse into passivity. 'Often the leaders end up doing a lot of talking,' says Francesca Gino, 'and not listening to any of the ideas that the followers are trying to provide.' But with their natural ability to inspire, extroverted leaders are better at getting results from more passive workers."
I find it interesting because I am also an introverted individual. I know of my introvertedness for many reasons--I don't attend school parties for my abhorrence of loud environments, Preference for one-on-one conversations, Preference to think through something before responding, Need for alone time to regenerate myself after extended periods of time, Quiet in class--but I wonder if I respond to my introverted nature the wrong way.
From this study, I see that the introverted person works best when he or she hires engaged workers and listens to them, and from this then makes the best decision. Sometimes I become overwhelmed by my peers to the point of not being able to process information and cannot seem to process them. And yet I am ready to take their ideas and put them on the board and follow their ideas to the end. What does this mean for me? I can be quite passive, but if someone comes up to me and tells me to act in some way or another, I usually will act that way unless if I disagree or think something can be done in a different way; and only is it that when people come to me with ideas that I act outside of how I normally think. As a matter of fact, I've found that it is easier to understand something when articulated to me than when I have to read it. Or whenever people explain something to me...whenever I am not stressed. For it seems that my stress / my anxiety makes trouble now days in understanding something, usually when I am overwhelmed with information. (I will also emphasize that this overwhelming of information comes with "new experiences," but these subside and become routine, and when they do, then I am able to handle them.) But with a withdrawn nature, it seems to be necessary to say that I cannot handle the overwhelming of information well from my peers all at once when tackling a task; the question is not the nature as the nature can only change so far, but the question rather is how to work best with this nature. How can I, with a withdrawn nature, be able to handle overstimulation in social settings where my peers and I were working toward one goal?
I think this question will become an important one in treatment of Asperger's Syndrome and Anxiety. It is in these situations, social situations and new situations, that my anxiety flares up and becomes problematic in addition to my constant worrying over situations that are not presently occurring and will not occur. However, if I am able to deal with social situations and new situations, then my anxiety will fade away--and so will the worrying. For my worrying comes from these situations; worrying cannot help when (a) the situation is not in front of me and (b) the situation cannot be reasoned through or improved but rather can be only intuitive or has to be experienced in order to understand what to do.
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