How introverts can gain visibility in the workplace

Introverts may often be ignored at offices, but many of their skills are workplace, vital to the like creativity, innovation, and better listening

- Geetika Sachdev

• Introverts are typecast as shy or indifferent and are perceived to be unfit for leadership positions, but this is not true.

Meetings make Aarti Dua nervous. She’s a self-confessed introvert, and doesn’t like being in the spotlight.

Although she is hands-on in her role that requires strategising and creating content, her body language makes her appear underconfident. This has led her to being relegated in the background on several occasions. “I become extremely fidgety and avoid any eye contact with my superiors during our weekly meetings,” says the 32-year-old content manager at a Bengaluru-based startup. “I also tend to fumble if all eyes are on me. It makes me feel lost among the sea of extroverts at work.”

Anant Kimaya, meanwhile, prefers to talk less at work, for he wants his work to do the talking. He can’t get himself to engage all the time with his office peers—he prefers to keep the conversations minimal to client briefs. The problem is his managers eventually take credit in client meetings because he refuses to tom-tom about it. “It’s a task for me to market myself. I would rather focus my energies on creating good work and excelling at it,” says Kimaya, a 24-year-old graphic designer at a Bengaluru-based advertising agency. “But my unwillingness to blow my own trumpet has cost me in many ways—my extroverted peers have received better pay hikes and more appreciation from superiors. I have now made my peace with it.”