September 25, 2024

Quiet Leadership: Succeeding as an Introvert in Pharma

I'm Melissa
I'm a Career and Leadership Coach for Women in Pharma/Biotech. I've been where you are, and I help you create the career you want without working more hours or settling for good enough.
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In this episode, I dive into the often-overlooked strengths of introverted leaders in the Pharma and Biotech industry. I’m challenging the stereotype that extroversion is required for success and exploring how introverted women can use their deep thinking, empathy, and communication skills to excel in leadership roles without stepping too far outside their comfort zone.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

  • How to embrace and leverage your introverted strengths to lead effectively.
  • Strategies to build influence without being the loudest voice in the room.
  • Tips for creating a leadership style that works for you and supports your personal growth.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

KEY TAKEAWAYS

In a world where being loud and extroverted is often seen as the hallmark of a great leader, introverts can feel overlooked—especially in the fast-paced, high-stakes environments of Pharma and Biotech. But what if I told you that being introverted is actually a leadership strength, not a barrier to success? In my latest podcast episode, “Quiet Leadership: Succeeding as an Introvert in Pharma,” I break down how introverts can thrive by leveraging their natural abilities. Let’s dive into the key takeaways.

1. Embrace and Leverage Your Strengths

One of the biggest misconceptions about leadership is that you need to be outspoken and extroverted to get ahead. However, introverts bring powerful skills to the table:

  • Deep Thinking & Strategic Insight: Introverts are natural thinkers. In the data-driven world of Pharma, this ability to reflect and analyze before acting is critical. It allows you to make well-informed decisions and anticipate challenges.
  • Active Listening: While extroverts may dominate the conversation, introverts often excel at listening. By tuning into your team members’ needs, you can build stronger, more trusting relationships and create an inclusive, collaborative environment.
  • Empathy: Introverted leaders tend to score higher in empathy and emotional intelligence. In an industry focused on patient outcomes, empathy allows you to lead with compassion, motivating your team to work towards a common goal.

Take a moment to recognize these strengths in yourself and how they impact your leadership style.

2. Build Influence Without Being the Loudest Voice

You don’t need to shout to be heard. Introverted leaders can make an impact through thoughtful, well-timed communication and by building strong one-on-one relationships:

  • One-on-One Connections: Introverts often prefer smaller groups or individual interactions. In Pharma, where cross-functional collaboration is key, these deeper connections can give you strategic advantages, helping you influence across teams.
  • Thoughtful Communication: When introverts speak, their words carry weight. By contributing well-researched, insightful ideas, you can command attention in meetings, even if you’re not the most vocal person in the room.
  • Written Communication: Pharma and Biotech rely heavily on documentation, whether it’s clinical trial reports, regulatory submissions, or internal communication. Introverts often excel in written communication, and this strength can be a game-changer in driving decisions forward

3. Create a Leadership Style That Works for You

One size does not fit all when it comes to leadership. For introverts, it’s essential to develop a leadership style that feels authentic and sustainable:

  • Lead by Example: Show your team what great leadership looks like through your actions rather than words. By staying calm, focused, and empathetic, you can build respect and trust without being the loudest voice.
  • Delegate and Empower Others: Use your empathetic listening skills to understand your team’s strengths and delegate tasks accordingly. Empowering others not only boosts team morale but also enhances your leadership presence.
  • Set Boundaries for Recharge: Leadership roles can be draining, especially for introverts. Make sure to build in time to recharge, whether it’s scheduling quiet moments during your day or taking breaks between meetings. Self-care is key to long-term success.

There is no single mold for a successful leader in Pharma and Biotech. Whether you’re introverted or extroverted, success comes down to understanding your strengths and applying them strategically. If you’re an introvert, you have everything you need to excel in leadership—you just need to own your style.

Want to dive deeper into the specifics? Tune in to the full episode of “Quiet Leadership: Succeeding as an Introvert in Pharma” to hear how you can use your introverted strengths to your advantage in this fast-paced, dynamic industry.

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Transcript

Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of the podcast.

I hope you are having an amazing week.

Today I am really excited to dive into this topic.

We are going to talk about being successful, growing your career, and excelling as an introvert in industry. And this applies to you whether you identify as an introvert or to better understand the strengths of the introverts you work with.

I work with a lot of women who identify as introverts and can struggle with the loud voices around them.

You want to be thoughtful about your responses, and it can be overwhelming to have such loud and constant talk going on around you.

It can definitely feel like the louder the voice, the higher the rank.

You work in companies with speak up cultures and social activities and it can feel like your worst nightmare.

Like, can you just do your work and be brilliant in your technical expertise – do you really need to socialize and be loud and talk to hear your voice?

I worked in Pharma and Biotech companies for almost 15 years and I know the personalities – and although I am more extroverted, I’m not the first to speak up in meetings.

I like to think through my responses in group settings.

I remember when I worked at a Biotech company we had an executive leader who was soft spoken, introverted, had to have group activities in small doses, and she was a strong executive leader.

She is someone that when she did speak up, people listened.

I want to reassure you that if you’re seeing being an introvert as a negative or holding you back in your career, it’s not that you can’t be successful as an introvert and get into any role you want to, it’s about the strategy you use.

Today I’m going to give you 3 specific ways you can succeed in your career as an introvert that isn’t going to put you too far outside your comfort zone.

Because guess what? “Quiet Leadership” so to speak is not a weakness, it’s a strength —and actually, the Pharma/Biotech space, with its focus on technical complexity, problem-solving, and scientific rigor is actually well-suited for introverted leaders.  

Before we get into the 3 steps let me just further emphasize this with you with some actually studies and data:

First, A report from the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL)  found that introverted leaders tend to score higher in empathy and emotional intelligence compared to their extroverted peers.  

A whopping 82% of introverted leaders showed greater sensitivity to their team’s needs, fostering better relationships and higher team loyalty.

Think about it, in Pharma and Biotech, where patient outcomes and collaborative team efforts are important to get the best medicines to patients in need, empathy allows you to lead with compassion and strengthen team dynamics getting medicines to patients more quickly.

Next, a study published in the journal Psychological Science found that introverts tend to outperform extroverts in tasks that require innovation and creativity. The study concluded that introverts’ ability to focus deeply without distraction allows them to produce more innovative ideas and solutions.

Given that innovation is at the heart of Pharma and Biotech, introverted leaders can excel in driving groundbreaking solutions, particularly in research and development teams.

I’ll share one more:

A 2014 study by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology revealed that introverts excel at written communication and often take the time to craft thoughtful, concise messages. Over 70% of introverts in leadership positions reported feeling more confident communicating through written reports and recommendations.

This plays directly into the Pharma/Biotech world, where accurate, well-communicated data (think., regulatory submissions, protocols, clinical trial reports) is crucial. Introverted leaders can lean into their strength in written communication to lead projects and influence stakeholders.

Like I said, I work with a lot of introverts and one of the things we work on is effective communication. It’s rarely written communication, it’s how to understand, influence, and communicate effectively at varying levels and in different situations whether it’s managing up with your boss, how you present yourself in an interview or deal with challenging personalities.

If you look for the evidence, it’s there, introverts have incredible strengths as leaders.

Strength isn’t measured by the volume.

Now let’s talk about the 3 steps you can take to use your quiet leadership, or introverted tendencies to your advantage to succeed in your career.

Step 1: Embrace and Leverage Your Strengths

As these studies showed and just to make crystal clear, here are 3 specific strengths of being an introvert in industry.

Deep Thinking and Strategic Insight:  Introverts are often strong at thoughtful, analytical thinking, which is crucial in a data-driven industry like ours. Leaders who are reflective can assess risks, foresee challenges, and offer deep insights, which is essential for strategic decision-making.

Active Listening is your Superpower: Unlike extroverted leaders who may dominate conversations, introverts like you can excel at listening and understanding others. This allows you to lead teams more effectively by tuning into your team members’ needs, fostering trust, and creating inclusive environments where diverse ideas can thrive.

Lead with Empathy: Introverted leaders often have strong emotional intelligence and empathy, which is critical in Pharma where the end goal is improving patient lives. Leading with empathy can result in stronger, more loyal teams that are motivated to do their best work.

Take a moment and think about how analytical thinking, listening, and empathy show up in your current ways of working. How do they impact your leadership style?

Step 2: Build Influence Without Being the Loudest Voice

Like I said, volume isn’t the strength, the strategy is.

Let’s talk about the Power of One-on-One Connections: Introverts tend to build stronger, deeper relationships in smaller groups or one-on-one settings. I think this is great – here is why – you build deeper, more meaningful connections and allies 1-1, regardless of your introverted or extroverted style – and this is your strength. You are more likely to have more strategically advantageous relationships with your focus on 1-1 connections. 

Thoughtful Communication: Instead of speaking for the sake of being heard, introverted leaders can make a bigger impact by contributing thoughtful, well-researched ideas at the right moments. This can give their words more weight in meetings or during decision-making processes. Like the executive leader I shared earlier, because she wasn’t always talking, when she did, people were more likely to listen. When she spoke there was substance there.

It doesn’t mean you should overthink every word, I know this can be an issue for many of my clients, but there is a balance between overthinking or being doubtful of your opinions and expertise and being thoughtful about how you share them.

Use Written Communication Effectively: In the Pharma industry, documentation is critical. It’s almost painfully critical, right? I have taken some of the best documentation practices from industry and incorporated them into my own business, like SOPs. I have SOPs for how to do virtually everything on the operations side. But I’ll let you know I don’t practice GDP. I am happy to date things however I want and chicken scratch my notes. It’s freedom for me lol.

Like I shared earlier, introverts often excel at written communication, so they can use this strength to lead more effectively by providing clear, thoughtful reports, recommendations, or even emails that drive decisions forward.  Instead of going back and forth and hearing people talk their thoughts out loud without thinking them through first, you are skilled at carefully crafting the best written messages to get a positive outcome.

Some tips you can use to amplify these strengths would be to follow up after meetings with an email of what you understand your action items to be. If you know you have an idea you want to share at a meeting, you could reach out to the organizer and let them know ahead of time so you have time built into the agenda and a runway to share, rather than having to insert yourself, if you’re not comfortable with that.

Now let’s get to Step 3: Create a Leadership Style that Works for You

One of the exercises I do with my clients is to create their unique leadership philosophy. We do this at any level so you can identify your strengths, values, and positions as a leader, and lead with authenticity, in a way that feels like you and allows you to stand out.

I did a podcast episode on leadership philosophies, if you’re interested in that topic and want to check it out.

You can create a leadership style that works for you by leading by example and showing people with your behavior the type of leader you are. 

Delegate and Empower Others: You may find it’s easier for you to delegate and empower others because of your tendency to be more empathetic, be a good listener, and understand people’s strengths. 

Set Boundaries for Recharge: It’s also important for introverts to build in boundaries and down time to recharge. Being introverted doesn’t mean you don’t like people, it just means you don’t get a lot of energy from being around people and talking your thoughts out loud. Leadership or highly visible roles especially in industries like Pharma where the stakes are high can be draining for you. Something you can do is to schedule quiet time for you to go for a walk, or spend time alone. Schedule buffer time between meetings so you aren’t back to back when you can.

So let’s recap the 3 steps I shared with you today: Embrace your strengths, build influence using your strengths, and create and leverage a leadership style that fits you.

Another thing to add here is that there isn’t a best style for any particular role.

There are strengths that introverts have to offer, which I highlighted just some of those today and there are also strengths that extroverts offer.

What’s important to takeaway is that you can be successful as you are. You don’t need to be someone you’re not to get to the levels of leadership you want.

Instead of focusing on styles and personality traits, it’s more effective to focus on skills and strategy.

What skills could you build that will help you use these 3 steps and amplify your strengths as a leader? Where might you use your style as a crutch to stay small or prevent growth or change, and where instead could you change your approach or strategy to be more effective?

I hope this episode gave you a lot of insight into how you can succeed as an introvert as well as some confidence and reassurance that the way you are is not a weakness, but instead a powerful strength that is a great fit for the Pharma/Biotech industry, no matter how loud the other voices might be.

That is all for this week’s episode. Have a great week.

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No longer settles for “good enough”

Hi, I’m Melissa.

Career & Leadership Coach for Women in Pharma/Biotech

I'm a former Talent & Development leader in Pharma/Biotech turned CEO and Certified Professional Career & Life Coach. I also host the podcast, Your Worthy Career.

I've been where you are, and I help you create the career you want without working more hours or settling for good enough.

I'm leading a movement of women in the industry who are figuring out exactly what they want and shattering the glass ceiling. The very real ceiling in the industry, but also the one that we impose on ourselves. 

So long, imposter syndrome and overthinking. It's time to step into the impact and life you're worthy of having.

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