Can Being Introverted Hold You Back in the Workplace?

Introverted individuals are those who do not crave the company of others. Usually, they're quite happy to be left alone with their thoughts and to focus on doing their own thing. You would think that this would be of benefit to a workplace environment. Often, introverts are creative, good problem solvers and industrious. However, overall, it appears that this is an extrovert's world. The education system is geared more towards individuals who are loud, outgoing and confident. If a child is reserved and barely says a word, this is regarded as a negative, and so it continues through an individual's adolescence and adulthood. Whether you're an introvert or extrovert will affect your relationship and career choices, and it isn't something you can change.

There are some introverts who can put on a facade of being extrovert, but usually this is only for a short period of time. Introverts generally find that being thrown into social situations is a rather draining experience. Clearly, this can have a detrimental impact on your career prospects and hold you back in the workplace. In order to get a job, you first have to attend an interview and blow your own trumpet, telling your interviewer about how good you are working as part of a team and that you're a people person. However, if you're not a very good liar, it can be rather challenging to sell this to a potential employer. Plus, if you do get the job, you then have to actually deal with people on a daily basis.

Obviously, how successful you are will depend on the kind of job you choose. If you decide on a career where your introversion is an asset rather than a liability, such as in the creative field, the chances are you will be able to progress. If, however, your job requires you to interact with lots of people and to sell your ideas to other individiuals, it may be more difficult and when promotion time comes around, you may find that you're always the one that is overlooked. The situation isn't fair, but extroverts are able to convince people of their superior people skills, even if the reality is that they just talk a lot of hot air. Introverts are less inclined to put forward their views, even if the points they want to make are relevant.

Ultimately, this is a competitive world and everyone is fighting for something - whether it's status, money, or power - and quite often it is extroverts that are deemed more successful. There are plenty of successful introverts, but you are less likely to know about their success, anyway, because they tend to keep themselves to themselves and avoid frivolous chatter. On the filp side, being an extrovert doesn't automatically lead to success, although extroverts may be better at portraying themselves as more successful than they really are based on a narrow range of criteria that they equate with success. It seems that being introverted does limit your career choices and can hold you back in the workplace, but that doesn't necessarily have to be the case.

Is Ambition in the Workplace a Good Thing?

Ambition in the workplace can be a good thing, because it is generally ambition that drives you to perform better. When you want to achieve career success, you may be prepared to go beyond what is expected of you, so that, hopefully, your efforts will be recognised by your superiors and you will be rewarded with a promotion. The positive side of ambition is wanting to get ahead and being prepared to work hard for it. However, there can also be a negative side if your ambition exceeds your ability and you decide to do everything possible to get ahead.

If you are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve career success, you are likely to get on the wrong side of the people you work with. If your ambition leads you to steal other people's ideas and take credit for work that you haven't actually done, you will most probably be found out sooner or later. Clearly, even if you are promoted it is going to be difficult to get your colleagues on board if they have very little respect for you. Ruthless ambition is therefore not a good thing and although it may help you obtain a promotion or two, it would be better to rely on ability and hard work.

This may be difficult if you're not particularly talented at the job you have been employed to do and would prefer to shirk your responsibilities and get other people to complete tasks that you should be doing. If your ambitious, but lazy and not very astute, you may become depressed and annoyed at your lack of career success. It therefore might be worth scaling back your career goals if there is very little chance of you achieving them, especially if your ambition is not enough to motivate you to try harder.

It is when you are highly ambitious without necessarily having the goods to back up your ambition that you may decide to trample upon other people to get wherever you want to go. You may be so preoccupied with furthering your career that you will do whatever it takes to achieve your goals. This might be good for you, but not for everyone else. It can be extremely frustrating to see someone who has very little aptitude for a job get ahead just because he is good at sucking up to the boss and getting on the right side of important people, but this seems to happen all too frequently.

A certain degree of ambition is good if you have a career that you wish to pursue and achieve success in, but there is more to life than work. You shouldn't allow ambition to consume your life, especially if it means you end up abandoning your principles and doing whatever you can to succeed without considering the consequences for other people. You cannot rely on ambition alone when hard work and perseverance are also what is required.