S1E10: The Introvert Leader with Terrance Lee

Terrance Lee, AKA The Introvert Leader, 

https://www.instagram.com/theintrovertleader/
https://www.tiktok.com/@theintrovertleader
https://twitter.com/IntrovertLead
https://www.quietvoicefearlessleader.com

had always avoided taking on leadership roles in his life.  At the age of 13, an experience occurred which caused him to doubt his ability to speak in front of people, and caused him to shy away from the spotlight.  This worked for Terrance until he eventually had to learn leadership skills by necessity at his first engineering job out of college.  

When he had been working in his first role for a short time, his mentor put in his two-week notice.  Terrance then found out that he had to take his place presenting to a group of experienced engineers and pilots for a highly technical review.  Despite feeling extremely nervous, the meeting that Terrance led went well; which gave him a giant confidence boost.  

Since then, Terrance has taken on many leadership and management roles as an introvert at several Fortune 500 companies in the defense industry, with proven results.  He utilizes his platform to empower introverts to tap into their own inner leadership potential and is never shy about sharing the tips that he has learned throughout his journey.

Leadership Voyage
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email: StartYourVoyage@gmail.com
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linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonallenwick/, https://www.linkedin.com/company/leadership-voyage-podcast/
music: by Napoleon (napbak)
https://www.fiverr.com/napbak
voice: by Ayanna Gallant
www.ayannagallantVO.com
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Transcript

0:23

okay i'm here with terence lee the author of quiet voice fearless leader uh terence it's really nice to meet you this afternoon thanks for taking a few minutes yeah it's nice to meet you as well i'm really happy to be here yeah thank you so gosh about 10 months ago now it seems you wrote this book quiet voice fearless leader i was i read it a couple of months ago and and loved it uh but i was brushing up this morning and was uh really excited to see it's it's a bestseller on amazon it's it's like in the top four in three different business categories um what did you think when you published this book 10 months ago do you think you'd be seeing those kinds of results absolutely not i had no idea what to expect um and it's interesting because you know when i started writing it i wasn't thinking about bestseller categories i wasn't thinking about rankings on amazon or any of that i was just thinking about helping introverts helping people that shared the same kind of situations and struggles that i did and really just using my story to try to help people in that way so so absolutely not i mean i wasn't thinking about those things it's definitely been interesting uh and really you know it felt really good to just hear the feedback from everybody because ultimately i wanted to help people and so it's been good that it's been doing that that's great yeah i guess i guess the metrics are just the lagging indicators of success of you reaching many more people so that's so cool so cool to see um[Music] i i said we were talking before before recording i i read the book and listened to some of the audiobook in your own voice uh it was really interesting i don't know if it's because we're both bald and maybe we're similar age and and we both like basketball growing up i don't know that there was so much in there that um i did feel a connection with and there's a story that you tell early on in the book it kind of seems like it's kind of the hook maybe for the book is an experience that you had when you were um a pretty young boy um in a choir rehearsal and i'm wondering if you would mind sharing that for our listeners yeah absolutely so when i was uh growing up you know i was a and i talked about this in the book but a pretty loud kid i mean i was uh i grew up moving around a lot and i typically was the kid that was uh raising my hand a lot and wanted to go to the board and answer questions to do different things and that was just who i was and really that changed when i got to the age of 13. and so i talked about an experience that happened i really enjoyed singing at the time my mom used to be a choir director in different choirs and things so i grew up around music a lot and um there was just a situation i had with the choir director that was really tough uh and i wasn't used to like just that personality style and the way that she kind of talked to me and things and so she just was you know really hard on me um and would talk about me not hitting certain notes she would want me to hit and you know hit those notes in the way she wanted it and you know she would do this around the other kids in the choir i just really felt like she wouldn't do it as much to some of the other kids and so uh anyway the story i talked about in the book is one particular day when we were there and you know basically uh i was in the tenor section and i always had kind of a deeper voice from some of the other kids and so the alto section they sang their part the soprano section they sang and they came to to my sections uh time to sing and when i started to sing uh it wasn't even you know 30 seconds it was like within a few seconds she basically stopped the music and she pointed at me in front of you know the rest of the kids and she basically told me to stop singing and um it was it was a very difficult and disheartening experience i don't think i knew at the time what that was gonna do i had no idea you know when you're 13 something happens and you just kind of take it right and i found myself starting to get a lot more quiet after that um i looking back on it now i realized that that day i really lost a lot of confidence i really stopped speaking up as much i started to get a lot quieter in class i wasn't really raising my hand anymore it just it changed a lot about just who i was and how i saw myself and i didn't realize it at the time but looking back now i know that that was really a turning point for me so i started the book with that story because i know there are a lot of other people with a similar situation maybe it wasn't a choir director maybe it was a situation at home or maybe it was something that um you know they were told at school or they were told by a family member something that might have happened that might have caused a shift in the way that person thinks and the way they view themselves and so i started with that and then i wanted to talk about the uh the you know what changed from there so after that situation you know going into the corporate world and still having that lack of confidence but how i was able to actually use my introversion to my advantage in my career and how now i fully embrace being an introvert so it wasn't just about giving that story it really was about a story of triumph and trying to give people that hope that they shouldn't be down on themselves and feel like they can't overcome those kind of situations and so uh yeah that's why i sort of started the book with that thanks for explaining that and for for sharing the anecdote and and i mean i really really want to keep the conversation on you and on the tactics but i but i when i was listening to you recount this story i was driving in the car around the fourth of july and um and like i said there's just a lot that resonated for me it's interesting that you say i suspect a lot of people would have identify with it and so i remember i was on the eighth grade basketball team uh starting point guard who cares in eighth grade big deal but i felt really confident right i felt great it was fun and i had a coach who just beat me down and uh i was slowly out of the starting lineup and then i decided not to try out for the high school team right and and it's really interesting i was 14. and so at that kind of on the cusp of puberty age right and there's these hormones and emotions and teachers really impactful coaches can be really impactful and i do wonder how many people have really experienced similar scenarios to how you played it out so i think that that anecdote is really powerful so thank you for sharing more about that and you you talk about you use that as a vehicle to talk about introversion and then and how you've um you've found ways to use that to your advantage when in some ways perhaps that the the da the deck is stacked against introverts maybe and leadership now you cite in the book um uh barack obama shonda rhimes warren buffett uh and and many others as people who we may not even suspect perhaps as as introverts but they are introverted i am wondering um what do you see as some of the biggest challenges in the way that introverts um in a way of introverts who want to lead you know what do you think are some of the obstacles that get in their way yeah great question so one of the biggest ones that i see since i've you know started to do this work and had a lot of conversation with different introverts and with extroverts um that are in you know various positions is one of the things that happens is that we tend to doubt ourselves as introverts we tend to think that we have to be like someone else and i know this because i did it to myself for several years so we're in these workplaces we're in these environments and it seems like the people that get ahead or the people that are doing well are the people that are the loudest in the room they're the people that have more extroverted personalities right so we see that and we automatically assume that i have to be that to get where i'm trying to go and we you know associate being introverted as there's something wrong or there's something that has to change or we have to become someone that we're not and that's actually one of the biggest mistakes you know because ultimately there are strengths to being an introvert that we don't even realize or typically think about and so i think that's one of the biggest challenges is first just recognizing there's nothing wrong with us there's nothing wrong with having an introverted personality i think that's that's step one you know is doing that and then the other thing is just not holding ourselves back you know i find a lot of times that uh because we can tend to overthink we can tend to really think through situations deeply which can be a strength but sometimes it can it can hinder us if we're overthinking and it keeps us from you know doing things we want to do pursuing certain goals again back to because we think there's something maybe wrong or something we have to change the fact that we're an introvert so just to overthinking through situations that can be a challenge and i think we have to just really learn to lean into who we are and if there's something we want to go after we need to not hold ourselves back and just go after great advice if you're at the well i should say at the end of each chapter you you have a solid framework for each of these 10 10 chapters which are essentially 10 different leadership principles uh if i can characterize it roughly and and at the end of each chapter you you have a few sections you make a big deal out of saying you're all about action what's the point of learning and talking about something if you're not going to act on it but there's also a section in each chapter which is something like what introverts wish extroverts knew yeah um could you answer that question in the high level you've done a lot of work you've talked about this a lot you've thought about it a lot what is the one thing if there is one thing out there that you wish extroverts would take away from the book if they were to read it um yeah there's gosh there's a lot um so i would say and again it's gonna sound like i'm repeating here but uh from a stance of being an extrovert to realize that your introverted friends your introverted co-workers your introverted family members they don't have to be like you you know they have their personality they have their style and that's okay you know because i think sometimes what happens and again i'm having a lot of conversations with people that are more extroverted they'll assume something's wrong or they'll assume that you know something's like hey what's going on they don't want to go to lunch with the group or they want to work out like is everything okay and no everything is perfectly fine that person may just be more productive working by themselves or they might have been in a group all day and they just want to take some time to themselves to recharge and that's one of the natural things of being an introvert is we value alone time to recharge so i think that you know as extroverts one of the things that is just so so key is to realize there's nothing wrong with your you know introverted friend that you know and to really just accept people that have different personalities and i think the better that we can do that then it'll just help us to all coexist and be able to work better together thank you i know that you know at least here in the us over the last handful of years we've had so many discussions about diversity and different frames and and i love this additional angle of introversion and extroversion uh as an asset for diverse teams right in diverse diverse ways of working together and and you're right i mean i i'm an introvert um and i and i didn't even really realize until maybe seven eight years ago about oh yeah i'm alone in order to get energy whereas many of those around us are getting energy by interacting with others right yeah and there's a fundamental basis to that as you said um each of the chapter again each of the chapters is a kind of a leadership principle you've got several value um courage trust accountability humility all really great leadership characteristics that transcend introverts in my opinion um do you have a favorite um so i think that you know one for me that meant a lot was chapter eight which is confidence and the reason for that is that i struggled for a long time with public speaking um and again it all it all ties in because a lot of it had to do with the fact i thought i had to sound like someone else i had to be like someone else so when i would be in a meeting at work i would have something to say but i would just i wouldn't say it because i was concerned what people would think about me or how am i going to come off and things like that so i think the you know the chapter about confidence is very key because i know a lot of people that are more introverted we can think something is wrong i think we have to change so that chapter is all about uh not just how to have that confidence when communicating but realizing that when you have something to say what you have to say is valuable and you know it also has actionable steps about how you can grow as a communicator so uh definitely that chapter for me meant a lot because for me that was a personal struggle that i had for a long time yeah yeah if i recall um there was also i don't know if it was in that chapter or not but you talked about authenticity at some point well probably several places but you're talking about authenticity and how one of the um side gigs or careers that you were involved in and you're like i need to be like like someone else essentially right i need to be effervescent i need to be this this loud speaker to to attract business yeah and how'd that work for you it did not work it did not work at all uh and that's why i added it to the book you know and it's funny a lot of these different stories and things uh originally i wasn't gonna put in the book and i'm so glad i did you know because in the very beginning i was overthinking right and i was like i'm telling like all of my business people you know really put the story in the book and i'm glad that i you know put stories like that right because basically i was being fake i was mean i was trying to i thought i was going to sell more and i was going to do better in my business because you know if i was louder when i spoke and if i used my hands a lot and did what i saw my extroverted business partners doing that would work for me right and it actually completely drained me and i realized that just midway through actually one presentation i was doing i was midway through doing the presentation and i realized like this just doesn't feel right and it was really a turning point for me because i started to realize you know i can have my own style i can have my way that i communicate and that can be perfectly okay i don't have to sound like anyone else i have to be like anyone else so and what i loved that you added on top of that was stating confidently that's my style it might not be for everyone and that's okay right yeah absolutely loved that that was great so we've we've done we uh dived in a little bit to why you wrote the book uh some of the stories in the book uh just talking about introversion in general let's uh let's have a little rapid fire section here maybe where we can we can strive to help people tactically if they're introverts trying to lead or if someone knows is close to an introvert who's trying to lead um so you did already speak a little bit to this idea that sometimes introverts might be afraid of speaking up because they're afraid of looking looking stupid essentially um do you have any tactics you can offer for someone who's struggling with that how they can they can work to try and incrementally get a little bit better at that absolutely absolutely so i'm very big on mindset i'm very big on the words that we say to ourselves so i talk in the book about affirmation and so for me i have certain things that are now affirmations that i say whenever i'm going to do a very difficult meeting or i'm going to be talking to a group of people that maybe i'm not used to talking to and i have these affirmations that i'll say so i'll say things like i'm the best speaker in the room right just to psych myself out you know and it's funny these things seem very small they seem like you know it's like oh okay affirmations all right whatever but these things actually make a huge difference because on the flip side what we do a lot of times is we'll say the opposite to ourselves and we won't even realize it we'll stay and we'll think things like i'm scared i'm nervous i'm not ready like we'll do these things over and over and that comes out in the way we communicate the way we talk so when we flip that and we are we're being positive with the way we're talking to ourselves that is a huge help uh and then the other one that i'll say is practice it's just practice right so one of the things that helped me a lot with meetings and having difficult conversations and presentations was to just continue to do it over and over sometimes to myself right so if i have a presentation for work the night before what i like to do is i'll go through my slides i want to make sure i 100 understand what i'm going to be talking about i know my subject matter and then i'll practice i'll practice like you know just like i'm in a meeting and i'll run through the slides and i'll do that so you know the positive affirmations and then just the practice you know the more that you practice the more comfortable you get i think that when you know you get really nervous it's typically when you're not that prepared and you're[ __ ] negatively to yourself that's usually things that you know that causes the nerves so uh yeah those are two things awesome thank you you you said in the book also that when someone has a decision to make you can you encourage them to be a master asker so before we get to some tactics what's a master asker yes yes so a master asker and i use the uh illustration of a as my first business partner that i used to work with several years ago and he just he would ask a lot of questions and i didn't understand and so a master asker is somebody that does not just assume that they have to know it all themselves and they don't assume that they have to just go get all the answers themselves you know they assume that i'm going to ask the questions that have to be asked and then i'm going to make this tough decision or i'm going to move forward so it's really just being someone that's willing to ask the tough questions and seek knowledge really because you know nobody knows everything and nobody should put the pressure on themselves to have to know everything so that's what a mastermind school is that's great and and how do you how do you think someone can become um better at developing the master asking i feel like if i say it too fast i'm gonna say something inappropriate master asking skill how can someone develop the master asking skill yeah so i think that you know this is one where you know when someone's in a situation that requires uh some you know different information or questions to be answered uh i think it starts with first of all kind of what is your end goal right so what is the decision that has to be made what is the end goal that's needed so start there and once you know what information you're trying to get then start thinking about what are all of the gaps what are all the questions that i need answered in order to get to this end goal or get to this result and then it's about who are the people that can help me to get these questions answered right so you kind of come up with a game plan that way and then it's about just having the uh the confidence and having the uh humility i'll say too to just ask questions you know to not feel the pressure that you have to know it all because you don't right so it's just having that game plan and then just being you know humble and open enough to reach out ask questions and and do that yeah that's great thank you and that i mean those those relate this uh relates to the to the overcoming the fear of looking stupid it seems as well right um that's great so we've got some really nice actionable things that people can can work on uh in developing their leadership skills here um you do also talk about the advantage uh of being a master asker when it comes to decision making um as you've portrayed introverts also say perhaps you can overthink it so i am curious master asking to get enough information to make a decision without maybe getting into analysis paralysis i i'm curious if you have any commentary on kind of that fine line for someone yes that is a very fine line because what can happen is you can ask questions and you can get to a point where you are over analyzing you're asking too many questions and it gets to a point where you know you may never make a decision right so there is a certain point where you have to do what i call i take imperfect action so imperfect action basically says okay i might have seventy percent of the data that i need i mean i'd have a hundred but i've got seventy and based on my gut based on my experience based on the information that i've gotten from my team members and the people i've talked to i'm willing to take the risk of moving forward with this decision right so it's really about you may never have 100 of everything that you need but as long as you have enough information to make an informed decision just being willing to have the courage to move forward um and it's tough right because some people are perfectionists some people want to make sure they have every i doubted every t crossed and and honestly that that's kind of how i'm wired so this for me has been an adjustment you know i've had to learn that i may not always have all the right answers because sometimes there's just not even time to have all the information i mean like the type of programs i work on i'm sure a lot of people are listening to this sometimes decisions have to be made quickly right and you may not have all the answers but you have to move forward so it's really about just you know you may have to have the 70 solution and not the 100 and be able to move forward with that yeah great thank you i there's so much to be studied and understood about decision making i don't know if you're familiar with uh farnum street but uh it's like the the group's entire focus it seems is on decision making for anyone out there check out farnam street it's very interesting um[Music] yeah 70 of the information that seems to be a thing that's come come into the uh general consciousness the last maybe five or six years right um there's not a whole lot that happens after 70 that's gonna probably sway you is there right that's true yeah okay lots of good stuff uh related to introversion related to leadership decision making and so on before we wrap it up with the last couple things i i uh those of you who don't like sports you can mute this for a 60 seconds i gotta ask you because it's a it's a hot topic amongst the um my eight-year-old son and his friends who do you think is better kobe bryant or michael jordan oh gosh now we get to the hard questions yeah i know so see i i'm i'm from the jordan era so i was born in 81 and i grew up playing basketball my whole life so i'm you know i'm from the area that saw jordan you know dominate and you know they eventually overtook the pistons and then you know won the six rings but then i also watched kobe's ascension right so i got to see that as well um i gotta go jordan just because of the era i grew up in but i gotta be honest it's really close for me i mean kobe was amazing um and i pretty much have them like number one and two yeah right there do you have thoughts on them as leaders on the basketball court like how they carried themselves with their teammates or things because i mean for those of us who are sports fans if you're into basketball i'm sure we've seen the last dance by now the 10-part documentary about the the the um the 1997 98 bulls i think it was and uh i'm just curious if you have any thoughts on on their leadership styles you know it's funny you say that because i remember watching the last dance and it's around the time i was finishing up writing the book and michael jordan by the way i've learned is an introvert his personality style they say that you know when he was playing for the bulls he would spend a lot of time in his room by himself after the games which i found kind of interesting um but anyway yeah i think that his leadership style was definitely not my leadership style i think jordan's style was a lot more um in your face aggressive but he was you know he wanted to win i mean he was just very he was a different personality in that way he was obsessed with winning you know i don't know and they won right so people look at the documentary and they would say oh well he was a great leader i mean they won six titles right um but i don't know i think that with leadership there is a certain level of empathy that needs to be there as well so i'm not going to say that he was a bad leader i would say he was a very different leader i think for me i definitely value my team's perspective i value having empathy with my team and i value those relationships and you know from watching the last dance i mean you could tell from you know hearing what horace grant had to say and some of the things even you know scottie pippen that i think jordan you know i'm sure rubbed them in the wrong way throughout the years at different points um so so i don't know i mean some people would watch it and they would say well he was a great leader they won six titles and other people would watch it and say well he also was hard on the people that he worked with and he rubbed them the wrong way it probably ruined some relationships so i don't know i guess it depends on who you ask yeah it is interesting because you can't argue with the results but this is one of those moments where you you kind of wonder where the um you know if the the end justified the means i guess yeah it's it's interesting for anyone out there you know even if you're not really into basketball you might want to try check out the last dance it is a very interesting uh ten part series in team dynamics and change and um all kinds of interesting things but uh yeah thanks terence i knew i had to get a little basketball in here because because of you brought it up a couple times so thanks for humoring me um yeah before we wrap it up um i'm gonna ask you the question i ask everyone uh at the end it doesn't have to be related to our topic at all um but what is something that you've learned recently um something that i've learned recently so i have learned that i am able to be very calm in high pressure situations i i think i you know so i knew that i knew that for a while but with what i'm working on right now i definitely have seen that and that's been that's been encouraging for me to really you know just have that confirmed um i've also learned that if i don't even like i'm sure i guess the second one um i really do care about people that might sound you know cliche or hallmark or something but i really i really do um and i i've just seen some of the things that the team i work on right now things that we've been through a lot of the challenges we've been facing and different things like that and i really do want to see people just in a good space i want to see people win i want to encourage people like those things bring me joy so i've really you know been like about myself over here recently um so yeah so those are two things yeah thanks for sharing those terence that's great a wildly successful book i'm gonna go ahead and use hyperbole there a wildly successful book everyone should read um where can people reach you uh connect with you learn what you're up to you know all of the above yeah yeah absolutely so um right now uh people can connect with me on social media they can follow me on instagram or tick tock at the introvert leader i'm also on twitter at introvert lead and people can connect with me on my website acquiredvoicefearlessleader.com and i actually am in the process of creating an online course called the introvert career blueprint beautiful you can pre-register for that for free at introvertcareerblueprint.com that's great thank you so much terence well it's been my pleasure talking about talking shop with you today uh i will hope to keep this conversation going and hopefully uh you'll continue to help more and more people out there with your your personal experience and wisdom and and thanks so much for coming on today to to talk shop absolutely i appreciate it it's been a lot of fun thank you thanks