Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
If you’re an introverted engineer looking to step up into leadership, or a manager looking to support a report into a more senior position, this is the guide you’re looking for.
Irrespective of how hard-working or quick at delivering quality work you are, it can sometimes feel like introverted individuals are more likely to be overlooked for opportunities. The corporate world often rewards and recognizes the loudest in the room, the one with charm and the ability to demand attention. This has been a recurring observation I made in my years of managing engineering teams. And I’ve made it a mission to empower and recognize introverted team members.
In the earlier years of my career, the frustration of being overlooked and unheard shaped me into the manager I am today. But I learned along the way that instead of trying to change who I am to fit the mold of what I thought a leader should look like, I was able to lean into my strengths instead.
Carving your own path and ensuring that you’re able to voice your opinions and showcase who you are is the hard part. But if done right and strategically, you can transition from being perceived as the non-social software engineer to someone who is able to lead others and stand out in boardrooms.
The 3 key strengths of an introvert
Quiet leaders are often intentional, reflective, and calm – taking all facts into consideration before making a decision. While there are many advantages to introversion, there are three that lend themselves especially well to leadership.
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Active listening
Introverts often aren’t the ones doing all the speaking in a room, but this does allow them to spend more time listening. Being a good listener means that you are able to get all the facts and fully understand a situation or person.
In being active listeners, we help create psychological safety by giving others the space to speak, listening without interruption, and showing genuine interest in their opinions and ideas. It’s this simple act that encourages open dialogue and makes teammates feel respected and valued.
Active listening can give you the strategic edge you need to thrive, as it helps you notice what often goes unspoken —hidden dependencies, underlying concerns, and even tension reflected in someone’s tone and responses. By actively listening to both the spoken and unspoken, you can gain early insights by synthesizing different perspectives and identifying patterns others might miss.
Calm in the storm
Alongside their great listening skills, introverted individuals are able to anchor a team during high-stress situations. Where others might vocally and publicly panic about looming deadlines or their laptops suddenly crashing after hours of coding without saving their work, an introvert would remain calm and bring balance to the situation.
Staying calm allows you to bring the team back to what truly matters, understanding the issue and finding a way forward. Remembering to pause, think clearly, and follow the systems and practices you’ve built as a team can turn chaos into collaboration. This means leaning on established processes like incident response playbooks, escalation paths, and agile ceremonies.
This ability to remain calm and composed under pressure has its benefits, but how do you make this visible? Share your reasoning once the situation stabilizes, explain how you approached the problem, what helped you stay focused, and the challenges you faced. Reflecting on the lessons learnt can be done in retrospectives or incident postmortems. This small act of communicating your thought process and helping others learn from your calm approach will reinforce your leadership presence.
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Quietly uplifting team members
For me, a good leader is someone who is able to empower those around them. And because introverts are not naturally inclined to seek attention unnecessarily, we can be great at letting others shine without it bruising our egos. This is a hard attribute to find in the corporate world, especially when climbing the ladder feels like a “crabs in a bucket” situation, where individual success is undermined by others who feel threatened or competitive. This ability to lead through influence rather than control is something that introverts are able to do well, because they can show impact and value without the need to be in the spotlight.
How to build visibility as an introvert
Introverts can build visibility and influence without changing who they are. Here are some practical ways to make sure you are not overlooked:
Remote working
If you’re working from home, especially if you’re not naturally inclined to initiate a chat with a colleague or speak up during a virtual meeting, the feeling of being overlooked and undervalued can be amplified.
When working remotely, visibility needs to be intentional and part of your daily routine. To signal presence, engage early in discussions, proactively share progress updates – recap key findings in teams or other channels (like Slack). Make use of 1:1 sessions with your manager to communicate your priorities, challenges, and wins.
You’re not competing for attention, but ensuring your impact and perspective are visible even when you are not physically in the room. Visibility in a hybrid world is not about noise, but it’s about consistency, contribution, and follow-through.
Find a sponsor, not just a mentor
You don’t need to be known by everyone. Find a sponsor, not just a mentor. A sponsor is someone who can advocate for you in rooms you’re not in. For introverts, sponsorship often comes from building authentic relationships, not by selling yourself, but by being dependable, delivering, and being trustworthy.
Build credibility through consistency, stay open to feedback, and communicate your goals clearly. Sponsors are likely to advocate for people they trust, and trust is built through steady impact.
Use documentation as a leadership tool
Lean into documentation as a leadership tool. Use Slack, PR comments, Microsoft Teams chats, and other documentation to create visibility, influence, and demonstrate leadership without being vocal. Written communication can be a powerful way to lead quietly, whether it’s capturing decisions, clarifying blockers, or offering constructive feedback. Clear and thoughtful messages build trust and signal ownership and engagement. Over time, this consistent online presence creates a reputation for reliability and influence.
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How to be a better manager for introverts
Leaders need to become intentional about empowering and recognizing introverted individuals or engineers in their team. Some of the practical steps I’ve followed as a leader include:
- Being inclusive in meetings. Actively seeking out everyone’s opinions without putting anyone on the spot or making them feel uncomfortable. Share the agenda beforehand to give everyone time to prepare their thoughts. During discussions, ask open-ended questions or pause to invite perspectives, rather than directly calling out people unexpectedly. Offering space for written inputs can also allow for quieter voices to be heard.
- Adjusting the promotion and rewards criteria by redefining success. This involves ensuring that emphasis is placed on impact and value. Impact can be measured through outcomes such as improving team efficiency, code quality, or product stability, while value can be shown through mentorship, proactiveness, and the ability to elevate others. These are traits that often come naturally to introverts, who may not always voice their contribution but constantly deliver meaningful results that have a direct impact on the team or organization. Redefining success is what creates fairness for all personality types while rewarding what truly matters.
- Making unseen contributions visible. Share stories of the impact and value introverted individuals have brought to a project or the team as a whole. This can be achieved by incorporating feedback into agile ceremonies like retrospectives, sprint reviews, or standups. As a leader, create and encourage a culture of appreciation within the team and in group settings. Over time, this normalizes recognition and ensures that valuable contributions don’t go unnoticed.
- Provide mentorship that fits an introvert’s strengths. Actively listen to what drives and energizes them. For introverts, mentorship often works best in scheduled 1:1 sessions that allow for reflection rather than spontaneous discussion. Creating an environment of thoughtful dialogue, allowing time to process feedback, and encouraging follow-ups after sessions helps build trust and depth. Introverts often prefer to internalize and revisit conversations, and being a great mentor means respecting that rhythm.
- Unlearn the biases that define what a good team member is and recognize that not everyone is the same. As a leader, it’s important to take an introspective stance and truly question any long-held assumptions about how performance is measured. Inviting feedback from different voices and reflecting on who gets the most recognition can reveal hidden biases. Developing that much-needed self-awareness can help you shift towards more inclusive behaviours and fairer evaluations across the team.
Final thoughts
Leadership takes many forms, and teams are made up of diverse individuals. It’s important that we take the necessary steps to eliminate biases and empower the quiet leaders. Your introverted, calm, and quiet demeanor does not mean that you are incapable of leading teams and organizations. In fact, it often means the opposite. Play to your strengths and use them with confidence.
