Too Shy to Be a Leader?

Women at Work

Harvard Business Review

Management, Entrepreneurship, Business/management, Human, Business/careers, Women, Careers, Hbr, Resources, Workplace, Gender, Business, Business/entrepreneurship, Harvard, Progress, Equality

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 19 October 2020

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

One woman’s struggle with shyness prompts us to explore the seeming conflict between being shy and being a leader. We offer strategies for overcoming anxieties that may be keeping you from going after your career goals, as well as advice for supporting socially anxious colleagues. Guest: Alice Boyes.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Harvard Business School Executive Education develops leaders who make a difference in the world.
0:06.0	In their programs, experience the power of fresh perspectives and connect with a world of new ideas.
0:13.0	Learn more at HBS. Me slash work.
0:17.0	That's HBS.
0:20.0	M.E. slash work.
0:23.0	Recently, we got an email from a listener named Laura who talked to us about a problem that really resonated with me. She suffers from what I would describe as
0:37.0	painful shyness. You know she is loaded with ideas she is highly competent, but when the spotlight turns to her, she turns boiled
0:48.1	lobster red.
0:49.2	That's how she describes it.
0:51.6	And the part that really got me was when she started to describe how this kind of extreme
1:00.8	sensitivity and her introversion is starting to get in the way of her career
1:07.2	advancement. I mean it has become a real barrier and you can read her frustration in her email.
1:14.0	Yeah, we all read that email.
1:16.0	We thought it would make such a good episode,
1:20.0	but of course we wanted Laura to talk with us and wondered would she actually do it.
1:24.8	So our producer Amanda got her on a video call to pitch the idea.
1:29.1	Hi.
1:30.1	Hi.
1:31.1	We loved your email.
1:32.3	That was so thoughtful and gave us so much to think about.
1:36.1	It was so great to hear back from you guys. Oh yeah. So when we were trying to figure out
1:41.8	like what we would do with this episode, what this
	...

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