You’re not comfortable with public speaking. You don’t know how to lead large groups of people. You’re not charismatic and tend to get lost in the shuffle. These are some of the stereotypes associated with introverts. What often gets lost is the upside of this personality type. Introverts generally listen more than they speak. They have high levels of self-awareness and empathy.

Barack Obama, JK Rowling, Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Elon Musk, Marissa Mayer, Michael Jordan and Meryl Streep are just a handful of famous introverts. Some estimates say that between one in three and one in five people are introverted. Expand that throughout an organisation and you may be sitting on a powerful resource that you haven’t tapped into yet.

Sissel Hieberg is the author of Quiet Leader: What you can learn from the power of introverts. She likens one of the primary misconceptions about introverts to an iceberg. Only a bit is visible but there’s lots more under the water that you don’t see. “In a meeting,” she says, “we might see that someone’s not saying anything and we add our own assumptions on top of that.”

We assume they’re shy, hesitant, lack action or just don’t want to contribute to the discussion. “But actually, what’s really happening,” she continues, “is that the introvert is reflecting and thinking about what’s being said. Connecting the dots about what Person A said earlier in the meeting with what’s just been spoken about. They’re thinking about what can happen further down the line if we take this route we’re talking about.”

This isn’t about demonising extroverts. It’s about looking at the characteristics of quiet leaders. Our instincts tell us that you need to be loud to get ahead, that being the most vocal in the room portrays knowledge and control. And this is where Hieberg pushes back.

She began writing the book as a passion project but, after working for just shy of 20 years in large corporates in investment banking and financial services, she also calls it an expression of frustration.

She says: “Most books and training materials about introversion focus on why and how the quiet person should change. That we need to become louder in order to be more successful. My argument is that having more proud quiet leaders will improve leadership for all and allow genuine diversity of thought to flourish.

“I’ve seen so many instances where people with so much to contribute are being overlooked or spoken over in meetings,” she says, “because we don’t have the mechanisms and the structures and the awareness in place to understand that just because someone isn’t talking all the time doesn’t mean that they don’t have anything to contribute. Or conversely, just because someone is talking doesn’t mean that they know what they’re talking about.”

Hieberg outlines seven areas in which introverts generally excel. They are:

• Humility
• Listening
• Observing
• Self-awareness
• Being reflective and able to ‘connect the dots’
• Having empathy
• Staying calm and in control of their own emotions

One exercise she describes is around the topic of listening and is designed to help people be more conscious of how they approach silence.

Imagine a work meeting you attended recently. You’re going to re-create that meeting in your mind, with a focus on being intentional about your silence. Picture that you go into the meeting and that you want to focus on encouraging others to speak. In order to do this you need to break the usual pattern where you do most of the talking.

Write down a sentence that you feel does this for you. What is the sentence? When I’m tired of hearing my own voice, I often use the expression ‘round robin’ with my team and ask them to provide updates on things top of their minds – sometimes they’re concerns, sometimes they’re things they want me to know. What opening question or request feels right for you?

Once you have your sentence, picture yourself saying it and imagine the types of responses you might get back. What other questions can you ask that encourage the other person to talk? Continue to note down the questions that encourage others to speak until you have a list you can leverage in future.

This is a small action that ensures that you as a superior do not dominate a discussion but also places a focus on active listening. This can be extended to other attendees of the meeting too. Be mindful of the loud voices in the meeting other than your own and encourage quieter participants to share their views.

Setting safe boundaries during a meeting can do wonders too. Set the expectation that ideas don’t need to be fully formed during the meeting. Add a disclaimer welcoming participants to add something in the next day or two that they didn’t think about in the room. This adds psychological safety and takes the pressure off quieter individuals.

“When I was in a big organisation, I would end up with half-hour back-to-back meetings every day, entire weeks on end,” says the self-proclaimed introvert Heiberg. “That is not ideal for me as an introvert. I would need time to reflect in between meetings. I’d want to understand the takeaways, and I’d want to feel prepared and not rushed going into the next meeting.”

Meetings aren’t a sign of productivity. A full calendar is not a badge of honour for overachievers. In fact, when run badly, meetings could be the antithesis of it.

“This is my introversion talking,” Hieberg admits, “but I feel it’s more efficient if everyone knows what the purpose of a meeting is going into it. Is there an agenda? Is this a brainstorming session or are we making a decision here? It can be really frustrating when that thinking process doesn’t result in something that everyone in the team can use.” A subtle tweak to a process that encourages better collaboration and helps every personality type work better.

But there’s a bigger point here. A survey of workers last year found that 80 per cent would be more productive if they spent less time in meetings and they feel that 72 per cent of meetings are ineffective. So, these changes don’t just help get the most out of introverts, it’s just a better way of doing business. Isn’t that why we’re all here?