This blog-post is reflecting on my own personal experiences of being an introvert in the world of academia. This isn’t to say that every introvert working in academia has the same experiences, but instead, is an opportunity to share how this has affected my day-to-day life in negotiating the academic world.
Finding a space for expression
I was always extremely quiet and shy at school. So much so, that my school reports would almost always make reference to the fact that I should speak up more in class. It also affected my relationships, and made it very difficult in high school a lot of the time to fit in with my peers.
I am grateful though of the fact that I have been privileged to have been brought up in a family who could afford extra-curricular activities. Whilst being an introvert at school was a challenge, it suddenly wasn’t an issue when I was performing in my music, dance and gymnastics. Being a performer (now largely via being a singer) has become such a core part of my identity and I’m grateful to do a job that involves quite a lot of elements where performance is central. This can include: teaching, public/invited lectures, conference presentations, and so on. These are the settings in which I thrive the most and the parts of the job which I find most enjoyable. I never really experience stage-fright which I think is often a shock to people who assume that introverts are terrible at public speaking. On the contrary, I find it’s safe being on a platform where you are in full control of your expressions, and where the social conventions are well-established, instead of trying to negotiate the social rules within more ad-hoc social conversations. All this reminds me of a Tweet from the account named Vaughan Fleischfresser:
Something which has been a revelation to me and helped re-ignite my motivation to stick at the day job, is the opportunity to engage in Science Communication (SciComm). Whilst academia is generally a bl**dy awful institute to be in, I can be reassured of the fact that because my job allows me the opportunity to engage in SciComm, this helps me be “me”. I can be a scientist and a performer; the two things which are the two core elements of my somewhat hybrid self (I recently did an interview for The Psychologist magazine where I talked more about this). So much of my job allows me to be a “performer” through the fact there are many platforms which have well-established social conventions such as within teaching or conference talks whereby I am largely in control of the social conventions and dynamics they may bring.
Hyper-monitoring
In relation to less-established social settings or platforms, I have only ever done one poster presentation at an external conference in my entire academic career, compared to what may now be hundreds of oral presentations. I find poster presentations extremely awkward! I think much of this is to do with the fact that as an introvert, I engage in a high degree of self and social monitoring. In any given conversation, I’m usually over-analysing the intricacies and dynamics of the interactions. Is there space for me to speak now? Is that person interested in what is being said? Whilst I suspect these are rather natural communicational thought processes, I attach a lot of weight to this process which results in my social batteries draining very quickly.
However, an upside of being such a high self and social monitor, is that I apply this to all my encounters which is especially useful in being highly adaptive with different audiences. When I’m teaching, this level of social attention means I am hyper-aware of whether I need to adapt my teaching in the moment. It also helps me as a mentor and line manager in having a sympathetic appreciation of the people I work with, and understanding the nature of our relationship to know how to support them.
Self monitoring can also be discussed as being reflective and inward-looking. Alongside this, this can relate to an ability to thrive on internal stimulation. These are classic introvert characteristics. For me, being a high self-monitor means I am reflective and thus self-aware of my limitations, which helps when understanding my personal and professional development needs. Not needing much external stimulation also means I can thrive for days or even weeks on end, entirely on my own, getting on with my work without the need to be motivated or enthused by external stimulation. This is especially useful when I may have an excessive amount of laborious admin work to complete (which seems quite a common feature of an academic workload!)
Selective moth rather than social butterfly
Contrary to expectations, as an introvert I actually really enjoy social events, although I would describe myself as being selective on these. My social batteries are a finite resource and I need to use them wisely. Basically, if I select to spend time with you, then you are important to me! I really enjoy networking at conferences and events. As an introvert something I have found which is a massive help for me here, is having my solid online presence (largely via Twitter) which can establish relationships with people and help express my interests etc in a way which means I’m not starting from ground zero when I’m with people in-situ. I think this goes back to the idea that this is a safe platform of expression and means I have much greater control of how I express myself without the usual challenges which in-situ conversions can bring to me. So whilst I might relish in social encounters and find ways of enriching existing connections and making new ones, I do this in a selective and considered manner so as not to drain my social batteries too quickly.
Sympathetic leadership
Finally, introversion and leadership is an interesting notion to end on. When leadership responsibilities involve chairing meetings, this is quite frankly my nemesis. I have (accordingly to peers) always been successful on this, but is a huge struggle for me. Chairing a meeting of say 20 people, trying to keep up with the conversation, bring order and make informed decisions when utilising such a high degree of self and social monitoring is excessively draining. Despite the challenges I face with in-situ chairing, other aspects of chairing a committee, such as setting objectives, meeting KPIs, delegating work etc are things I’m fine at, largely due to my excellent organisational abilities and precrastination tendencies (I’ve written about my experiences of being a precrastinator here).
A common theme which underpins my leadership approach is my recognition of the various ways that people can shine. I am acutely aware that not everyone will shine when in a meeting surrounded by other people. How do I know this? Because this is exactly the setting which extinguishes all my creative thinking and I recognise it will be the case for others too. As such, I’ve always set up structures to allow people time and space to develop and contribute ideas asynchronously, and to iteratively consider their decision-making before these are brought to an in-situ group context. This is also an approach I take when working with students, to ensure they are best able to demonstrate their learning in ways which aren’t reliant on a one-time-only event, but can be nurtured iteratively over time and context (I’ve written before on the use of MS Teams which I use in one of my modules to assess students’ contributions to a group task).
Final thoughts
To summarise, being an introvert means you can be really successful at many elements of roles within academia. From my experiences, these are the three things I feel being an introvert has supported me to do well:
Being an adaptive and expressive “performer”
Being a conscientious “hermit” for a lot of the time and being selectively social when required
Being a sympathetic leader
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