What picture and ideas come to your head when you hear the word “Leader”? For many years what I imagined was a man, but not just any man, I would think of a confident one, charismatic, talkative, and outgoing. In summary, an extroverted person.
For all those years that idea that I had formed in my head hindered my capacity to recognize different types of leadership and to even think about the possibility that I could be one.
There are many materials and perspectives about leadership and yet I’m here with one more. In this talk, I will share my personal journey in reframing what leadership meant to me as an Introverted person and why, contrary to what I initially believed, some of the characteristics of introversion actually helped me in the path of becoming a Lead Developer during my time at Detroit Labs.
Furthermore, in this talk, I will share some of the questions and the conclusions I arrived at during this discovery journey such as:
What is leadership to begin with?
What does it mean to be introverted?
How can I use my characteristics as an Introvert to be a good leader?
In summary, this is the story of leadership discovery from the perspective of an introverted woman of color, and for that reason, many parts of this talk will also touch on the intersections between introversion, culture, and gender.
