The Quiet Leader: Strategies for Introverts with Tim Yeo
This episode is about quiet leadership - how you can be an authentic leader even if you don’t have the loudest voice in the room. We’re joined by Tim Yeo, a design leader and speaker who helps introverts have an impact and influence without having to pretend to be extroverts. Tim is the brain behind The Quiet Achiever, where he coaches introverts to use their strengths to their advantage.
Tim shares his experience working in environments where strong opinions and loud voices are the norm, and how he was pressured to speak up more. Tim identifies as an introvert and shares his journey in discovering more about being one.
We also discuss the challenges that introverts face in the design industry, where we have to make our work visible, as well as in leadership, where there can be a perception that the ideal leader is an extrovert, and how to overcome those challenges.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
Leigh Arredondo 00:02
UX Cake is all about developing the layers you need to be more effective in your work and to be happy and fulfilled in your career. I'm your host, Lee Allen-Arredondo, and I'm a UX leader and leadership coach. Hello, friends. Thanks for joining me on UX Cake. Today we're having a conversation about quiet leadership and how you can be an authentic leader, even though you don't have the loudest voice in the room. Joining me is Tim Yeo. He's the founder of Quiet Achiever, where he coaches introverts to have impact and influence without pretending to be extroverts. Tim was most recently Design Director at IBM. And he's been Head of Design at several global FinTech startups. He speaks at conferences around the world. And he's an impactful, quiet leader. Tim also has a two-week course coming up called Quiet Achiever, which you can find on the Quiet Achiever website. Hello, Tim, and thank you so much for joining us on UX Cake.
Tim Yeo 01:17
Lee, thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. I am so excited to have this conversation because I've wanted to have a conversation about quiet leadership for years. I think it's something that that I personally relate to. I've always identified the first time I heard quiet leader, I man, I identified with that so much, and to then meet you. And you have this business and these workshops called the quiet achiever. It was like, Well, this is clearly clearly the person I need to connect with and have a conversation with. Tell me a little bit about your own experience of quiet achievement and being a quiet leader? Well, I can certainly say that it's been quite a journey. I've been working in design for the last 18 years, nine of those years has been in consulting, and nine of those years has been working in house mostly in startups. As you can imagine, a lot of those environments have been put me in rooms with people with strong opinions. And loud voice. Yeah, that's right.
Leigh Arredondo 02:33
I mean, we are in UX. And so we work with business people and product people.
Tim Yeo 02:40
And there's a lot of loud voices, I can tell you so many stories. And I remember early in my career, our bosses used to give me feedback like, you know, you're too quiet, you need to speak up more. I used to hate going to networking events. In fact, these days, I do a lot of my networking online. And public speaking was always a challenge. You know, every time I will present, I will always get nervous. I always get sweaty palms, I can always hear and see just feel my own voice quivering before he started speaking. And this was early in my career. And I remember watching presentations by Steve Jobs. Before I have a presentation, I remember almost mimicking a lot of these good people that I thought were really good public speakers, and tried to just learn, imitate, and just practice to try and make some of these habits my own. And in the beginning, when I was doing a lot of this, you know, it worked. But then I got tired because I felt as if I was pretending to be somebody else. I don't think there's anything. I don't think there's anything wrong with mimicking, because I think that's a really good way to learn. But what I found over time is really, through this practicing and making and learning. I took the best bits of what those people did. And what really changed was when I started making my own, it felt a lot more natural, it felt a lot more comfortable. And really the thing that made the difference was practice.
Leigh Arredondo 04:29
I want to get back to something that you said about getting that feedback, that you're too quiet, you need to speak up. And that's something that I know so many people have gotten that feedback, which in and of itself is problematic that people that I can think of who get that feedback the most tend to be women and people of color. And there's so many reasons we're not speaking up. I have had a really, really hard time just using my voice. And that includes in a meeting or speaking up. And now I understand the difference between not speaking up because I'm afraid versus not speaking up because I am listening. And I don't really feel like I have no something to contribute, other than perhaps asking questions. There's a lot of that, I think, when the people who are quiet are probably often really processing the information, and not ready to say something. So you mentioned Steve Jobs, being kind of a role model for presentations. I'm curious, who were role models for you at work? And also, what originally, what was your reaction to that feedback of speaking up more?
Tim Yeo 06:01
Well, if we come to role models for quiet leadership, there were none for me growing up, probably because they were too quiet. I mean, for a bit of context, I, I grew up in Asia, in Singapore specifically, and it's an Asian society, with I grew up with very traditional Asian values. So things like filial piety, respecting your elders, not speaking up in a meeting, unless you think that what you have to say is true and correct. And then about 10 years ago, I moved to Australia, which is the Western society. And the meetings are very different. You know, speaking up and participating, the shows that you're engaged, and when I first even back in Singapore, working in Western company, participation, like speaking up is participation, even if what you have to say, might not be true or correct. The point is that you are engaging, that you are participating that you are having a conversation, which is very different from the environment I grew up in, because oftentimes you find yourself in meetings, and you don't say anything, because either you have nothing valuable to add at that point in time. Like you said, maybe you are still processing. But then people in a western society tend to see that differently. It seemed as if you were disengaged, that maybe you were not that interested. And what I took away, and what I realized later on was, you know, who we are, and how we behave, can change. It depends on context, it depends on who's in the room at the time. And we are human, we are flexible, and we can adapt, and we can change. I think the important thing is realizing our roles in each of these situations. And really playing that role. Whether you're a leader, whether you're a facilitator, whether you're a participant, you just have to show up and do the role that you need to do.
Leigh Arredondo 08:07
Well, tell me a little bit more about that, and how that relates to kind of quiet leadership in the context of a meeting where you need to show that you're engaged?
Tim Yeo 08:18
Well, like most other introverts, usually when we're in meetings, I ended up taking a lot of notes. And that's a lot of benefits. In my early days, I remember when I was sitting in a meeting, and I was really intensely listening. And I was not taking notes. All of a sudden, when somebody calls my name and says, Tim, what do you think, and you know, I can still remember the blood draining from my face. And because everyone in the room is just suddenly looking at me. And I feel the pressure to say something, and then my heart is racing, and our mind is racing and like, can't think of something to stay, because everyone's looking at me. And I feel like that pressure to perform. The benefit of taking notes is that I can follow the discussion. For me personally taking notes helped me process my thinking in real time. And also it has it so some kind of physical artifact that I can look at that I can actually see and follow the discussion. So when I put on the spot, and I'm preparing something to say, it's not just thoughts in my head, that I have to work through, I have something physical that I can look at, that helps me process as well. So for me personally taking notes being put on the spot. It's a really good artifact that actually helps me respond better respond faster, when people do want to ask what I think in the meeting. And I think it's important to realize that when somebody invites you to a meeting, they are keen to hear what you think that's why they invited you in the first place, you know, talking about writing notes. And I think that's a, that's an awesome tip. Because you can, especially if you're encapsulating as you write notes, so you can see what you think. Along those lines, I think what I started to do was listen for questions that I could ask, because that's a way that I can participate and show my engagement. And, and it's it regardless of how comfortable I am giving my opinion.
Leigh Arredondo 10:33
And you know, and that does change from scenario to scenario, but listening for questions and then writing that down. Well, people are talking, and I think in in UX, many people are good at thinking about when you're doing research, let's say or you're looking at design, you might be thinking about probing questions or clarifying questions. And that's something that you can do in a meeting when people are speaking as well as knowing that if you have a question, chances are someone else in the room will have a question. Not only that, it doesn't make you look like you don't know something, it makes the other person feel good that they can answer a question, you know, which is just kind of another sort of tactic. But you but also you mentioned as far as not having quiet leader role models? I am and I'm assuming you mean, like at work. What about like, in the larger kind of realm of, of the world, at media even or, leaders? Or were there are there people that you identify as a quiet leader?
Tim Yeo 12:04
Well, for me, even the word introversion or being an introvert, I didn't have that vocabulary. It was not until maybe 2012. When I watch a TED Talk by Susan Cain, called The Power of s, and she also wrote a book called Quiet. I think that was the have that here. Oh, there you go. It was not until reading her book and watching her TED Talk, did I really get introduced and start having vocabulary and definitions around what he was, I just always thought I was shy, I was quiet. It was the first time that I truly felt seen. I felt as if somebody else understood. And when I speak to a lot of people, a lot of introverts that have read a book and seen a TED talk, they share the same experience as well. And then it was after that I started Googling for famous introverts at a start to realize that people like Meryl Streep self-proclaimed to be an introvert, Steve Martin self-proclaimed to be an introvert. Barack Obama apparently is an introvert as well. And you wouldn't peg him for an introvert thinking that he does so many speeches publicly. And then later on within our design industry. You have people like Jonathan Coleman, who was the content designer, you have Bob Baxley, the that used to work at Apple and now at ThoughtSpot. And then you have Larry Cornette. All of these people, when I started meeting and talking to them, they have self-identified as introverts. And when I we didn't, I didn't know about it. And I think that is part of the problem, that people don't come out and say that they are introverts. I remember there was, there was one time when I saw a post on LinkedIn. And it was a screenshot of a workplace survey, they were asking employees about strengths and weaknesses. And under the weakness column, it was a multiple choice. And you could put any one of the checkbox and the weaknesses was introversion. The definition of a strength is something that you are innately good at. So being that doesn't is that doesn't mean that everyone who's an extrovert is, you know, got us. That's their strength. That's not enough to have an impact, which is what we're talking about, right, to have an impact in the work that you do. And I think it comes back to, you know, this world, I think Susan articulated very well. We live in a world where the extrovert ideal is decided. And I think for a very long time, even though deep within myself, I've always felt like I wanted to be a leader that I am a leader. But it was never the picture of what leadership look like in society. And I think that's why when you talk about role models, why is it that people are more open about if they were introverts? Why is it that that's occurred to them to actually say it is probably because their belief still persists that if you do want to be a leader, that picture of a leader is still an extrovert. And I think that's why that's really part of the drive and motivation that I have to give the talk that I started giving, which was called Design leadership for introverts, is because, you know, giving it is tiring, public speaking is still tiring for me. But I still give it because, you know, every time I give it, somebody else in the audience would always come up to me either in comments after or after I came to talk. And they take so much away from it. And they say that is one of the few times that they they felt seen that they felt heard that, yes, there is a different model for leadership out there. And they are very glad that people like myself, and like others who speak up, who self identify as introverts, and they make it a lot more visible and a lot more public. Because chances are 40 to 50% of us out there aren't we just don't have as many references to point to to say, oh, there's there's more than one way of being a leader. There's this other way where I don't have to pretend to be extroverted.
Leigh Arredondo 17:21
Yeah, which I think, is the approach that many people do take. I think it's interesting when you in your, in your bio, you talk about teaching people to that they don't have to pretend to be an extrovert. And I know for a fact that this is how a lot of people go into leadership is pretending to be a whole lot of things. I believe we're in a different time now where there's more focus on diversity. Whether or not that's really happening at your company is a different matter. But it is in the conversation, at least, that you can be authentic, and a leader and that includes being an introvert. But to your point earlier, like there are a whole lot of different ways of being a leader. And you can build relationships that are, you know, critical for someone to have impact. You can build relationships, and be an introvert and do it in a way that feels authentic to you. So I would love to get your thoughts on those characteristics that you observe in yourself and others of quiet leaders.
Tim Yeo 18:39
First point, most of the introverts that I've coached, I coached mainly designers who happen to be introverts. And I think that's the correlation. Because if your job requires you to be in front of a screen, intensely pushing pixels, and crafting the thing to be as good as possible, it's a lot of alone time, although very focused time. I think, no, there's a correlation. Because if that's your job most of the time for most of the day, then yeah, I think that's naturally why a lot of introverts gravitate towards design being a career. Yes, they are extroverts who happen to be designers as well. But yeah, a vast majority of people that I meet are designers that are introverts. And when we talk about the traits, I think there are a couple. Number one, introverts tend to be amazing preppers they tend to prepare a lot for meetings, they come prepared, they have ideas, if there's a brainstorming workshop, and they know that maybe they're not as good at performing on the spot, tend to come with a bullet point list of ideas. That's if they even know what the workshop is about to begin with. So for the people out there listening, if you have a workshop, meeting that is coming, please send agendas before tell them before what you want to do before you do the thing, and I think you'll be surprised to find that the ideas that come out of these sessions will be so much better.
Leigh Arredondo 20:07
That's good, good advice for everybody.
Tim Yeo 20:12
So they tend to prepare, I think introverts tend to need a little bit more time to think and process their thoughts before they speak. I find even in myself, I process information. Not that we're slower, we just need a tiny bit more time to process before we actually speak up. I also find with a lot of introverts, myself included, that we tend to be better one on one, rather than in large groups. So one piece of advice that I do give a lot of introverts is, rather than holding one big meeting with 20 people to make one decision, why not have multiple one on ones in private, where you can actually have a much deeper conversation with people to get their feedback on your designs, for example, before rather than doing it, rather than doing it in a group setting, where you might get a lot of feedback, but it's very shallow, it could have multiple short meetings, one on one with people and get their feedback that way. And then you get deeper feedback. And also, the other interesting thing that happens is when you do meet people, one on one, or in smaller groups, people tend to tell you what they really think, rather than in a group setting where there might be group dynamics, or people might be less inclined to say what they really think because, you know, they might lose face if what they're saying might be wrong. So definitely think about doing things in smaller group settings, rather than large groups.
Leigh Arredondo 21:49
Yeah, that's actually advice that I give everybody. Everyone who has ever worked for me, whether you're an extrovert or an introvert, I think the people in your group are a lot of different dynamics. And that group dynamic doesn't always help with open, honest critique. You don't know what everybody else's motivation is behind what they're saying, you can learn so much more to your point, you can learn so much more if you have a smaller group, and where the other people involved or are more willing to share their own motivations or objectives with you. Which really helps come to the better solutions when you know everybody's objectives.
Tim Yeo 22:37
And you know, even though after we've worked through two, maybe three years of the COVID pandemic, people still heavily rely or over rely on meetings to get things done. And I think for many people, meetings just aren't always the best way to get things done. How many of us have been in meetings where you have one person having a monologue, and everybody else is just nodding their heads, you know, that didn't need to be that doesn't need to be a meeting, that could be have been an email or Slack message that you wrote, that could have been a short video that you recorded, and that people can watch it in their own time. You know, not everything has to be a meeting. And meetings tend to come with so many other unintended things like social dynamics to deal with.
Leigh Arredondo 23:27
Yeah, I do want to talk a little bit about ways that people can utilize their authentic nature, in being a leader. And so we maybe should back up just a couple steps and say, you know, what are we talking about when we say leader, because I think you and I are talking about something that is not necessarily a title, it doesn't mean that you are a people manager, it doesn't mean you're in charge of something large necessarily, in my opinion, it means that you are leading, you can be leading yourself, you can be a fantastic self leader, and demonstrate those qualities, those leadership qualities. And that is a leader and you can be a leader in any role. So just to set the stage of that.
Tim Yeo 24:18
So yeah, a lot of conversations that I have people felt held back. They felt as if no, I'm not I'm not a people manager. I'm not allowed to lead. You know, I'm just an IC you know, I don't care to lead yet. I meant to follow the orders of other people. I need to wait to have been given a role that his head off or lead that I can actually start leading. I think a lot of times people don't realize that, you know, they if they didn't like a certain way of working, that they themselves can be influencers of change. You know, you don't have to ask for permission to start doing a new thing in a new way. Because you think there's a better way of doing things. And I think that's the recurring message that I have for people that if you want to lead, you know, as you don't have to ask, number one, you don't have to ask for permission to do something. One of the practices that I've encouraged a lot of introverts to do, is record short videos of themselves, because a lot of us don't enjoy being in meeting so to actually have getting feedback, for example, on their designs, so why not, instead of actually booking a meeting, that's two weeks away, when everyone can actually make it to actually give you feedback on design? Why not just record a short video of yourself, presenting your design, sharing it on your instant messenger, whether it's slack or whatever, really asking people, this is not designed, this is my opportunity to pitch it to you in with and then for you to listen in your own time. And here are the three specific areas I want feedback on. Many people don't work that way. Many people feel like, Oh, can I do that? Yeah, you can. And a lot of times when I tell people these things, they feel as if they need to ask for permission. But really, if it's a better way of working, and you started trying it for yourself, and it kind of works. Yeah, that's that, for me is leadership. And the interesting thing here is, if other people see this as a better way of working, that your way of doing things is much better. Then guess what they start following you, they start exhibiting your habits. Another example might be if you're in a meeting, and maybe you don't appreciate if people want to speak on top of you, because you want people to have the chance to complete their thought. So maybe the behavior that you start exhibiting is simply not interjecting letting people finish what they have to say, before you say what you want to say. And then you can start exhibiting the behavior. And over time, we can start seeing other people think that it's a good idea that it's a good behavior to keep on going with. And guess what, in that instance, in my eyes, you are leader as well, you are introducing a new way of working. That wasn't the old way of working.
Leigh Arredondo 27:27
I like how you are, especially with that pre-recording the video, you're utilizing someone's tendency to prepare. If that is already something they do, then this is kind of just a little bit of a step beyond that, it can be a little awkward to record yourself on video the first few times. But this actually is something else that I wanted to talk about, which is like parsing out the difference between being uncomfortable versus being inauthentic. And the kind of the fine balance that we all have to do to grow. Which growth requires discomfort, you can't stay comfortable, stay in the same spot, grow. You're not growing, if you stay in the same place. And yet, so there's discomfort. But then there's what is authentic.
Tim Yeo 28:30
So in the coaching that I do, I use a simple framework called the four P's. It's not my framework, it comes from Dr. Jennifer Kahnweiler Ph.D., and she wrote the book called The Introverted Leader. And within that framework, the four P's are Prepare, Push, Presence, and Practice. And within that four P framework is Push which is the third P and push is all about stretching, right, which is growth. Use the word growth is really about stretching and you think about, you know, before you go for a run, you have to stretch. Before you do certain things that are new to you. You have to practice you have to stretch. If we never learned to walk, if we never actually stretch ourselves to learn to walk, we'll be crawling all the time. For me, it's really about trying something new. Imitation is one of the best ways to learn, but continuing to fake it and not making it your own. That's pretend. So it's really about trying something new, figuring out in trying that new thing. Know what part really what feels good to you. And then taking the best of what you try to imitate to learn and then making your own. If a lot of musicians they do covers, they take the same song that somebody else wrote that somebody else saying, and they sang it themselves and they made it their own and it sounds like a completely different song. Is that pretend? I don't think so. I think maybe I think there's a homage to the origin artists that did that singing. But at the same time, if you can make it your own, I think that's the most important thing.
Leigh Arredondo 30:15
Yeah, I think that's a really nice analogy. I want to make sure that we get to any other top of mind, sort of challenges to overcome. One, one that I'm thinking of is this idea that that I hear a lot. And I think that I felt this as well at points in my career is that it's, there's a couple different things. So I'll pick one is the discomfort with attention kind of gets mixed up with discomfort with ambition, and feeling there's something wrong with ambition. It's something that comes up with people that I work with, that there's the challenge being there's nothing wrong with ambition, what is sometimes wrong with that is when you're not staying true to yourself, and you're not honest, or you don't have integrity, you're willing to get ahead no matter what or who you hurt. So those are the differences that I point out to people. What are some other challenges that you see people facing, and how you overcome that?
Tim Yeo 31:38
The idea that they are not good enough. That just because they do not fit this picture of what a leader looks like that they can lead themselves in their own way. A lot of the people that I've met the introverts coach, they are some of the most brilliant designers and people that you will ever meet. They show you their work. And it's amazing. But they don't think they are amazing, because they don't feel as if they can show their work well enough, they they don't share it enough that they don't present it well enough, even though when you look at their craft and the stuff that they make. It's absolutely amazing. And I think a lot of these people end up being some of the most resilient people that I've ever met. Because they've been knocked down, they've been pushed back. They've been suppressed for so long, that eventually when they do find their own voices, they end up going farther and higher than anybody else that you've ever seen. When they do find their path, when they do breakthrough, when they do see a way forward, and a different way of working or different way of leading where they do see it, then there's nothing that will stop them.
Leigh Arredondo 32:56
Yeah, they've prepared versus someone who maybe right out the gate is going for that visibility. The benefit of holding back going for that visibility is that you have time to get really good at what you do. Or then dealing with the issue of okay, how do I make my work more visible? That's something actually not just introverts have to deal with in UX we have we have that question all the time. How do I make my work more impactful? I think we talked about it a little bit at the beginning. One way is in a way that is authentic to someone who is an introvert might be one on one relationships, like building that visibility, one on one versus a huge presentation necessarily. And what are your thoughts about being more visible or increasing the impact of your work
Tim Yeo 33:59
With designers specifically?
Leigh Arredondo 34:02
I think researchers as well, writers and anyone in under the UX.
Tim Yeo 34:11
All right, a lot. The pattern that I see is this, instead of sharing their work often, and sharing their work early, because the act of sharing is something that they might be averse to talking about the work, bringing attention to the work, instead of doing that and getting feedback early. What a lot of people that I've seen tend to do is they over prepare, they put in even more effort. And then the problem with that approach is that the more effort you put in, the more invested you become, the more the feedback will hurt. When and you are less likely to want to iterate, the more effort you put into it. And that's the problem because we don't all have the answers to the questions that we're looking for. That's why we work in teams. So part of what people can do really like a practical advice is to really try and distance yourself from the work when you're getting feedback on the work. The feedback is not about saying that you are bad designer that you're you are bad researcher, the feedback is not personal feedback on the work. Sure you did the work. But if you cannot have that separation, and when people are critiquing the work, do you think that they are critiquing you? I think that's where a lot of people stumble. I think that's a really big first step that people can take, just separating yourself from the work and hear that when people give you feedback, it's about the work is not about you.
Leigh Arredondo 35:44
Yeah. Isn't that funny? How I have wondered this actually, myself, does our field just attract people who are very sensitive? Or are we just really sensitive about our work, because it's so visible? And we do have to get critiques. And we do have to ask for input. And in a way that many other people don't have to do.
Tim Yeo 36:13
I mean, design is a very, I mean, it's very easy for people to have an opinion about design, because a lot of design can be perceived through our senses. A lot of people can have an opinion. Contrast that with writing code, you know, being able to write good code or bad code, you need to actually understand code to have a have an opinion. So there's a, there's an element of a craft to be able to actually understand what is good or bad code to even have an opinion. Right. But that's not the same with design. I think the goal really when people give feedback is to understand that the intent of feedback is to make the design better. It's not to say that you are bad at your job, the intent or the feedback really is, you know, to try and make the design better, make the design better for the people that you're designing for. And if you can see, you can hear that feedback through that lens, I think you can, you'll have a much easier time trying to de-personalize the feedback.
Leigh Arredondo 37:17
Yeah. And I think the same can be said about research and strategy, as well. And there is one more thing to point out with that is making sure that you're asking for feedback in the right way. Like going back to what's the problem you're trying to solve with your feedback. It's hard to think about this in the moment if you're just feeling criticized. But it's really important to make sure that the feedback you're getting is about a specific problem. And not that blue should be green. Actually, in a design system. That might be true. But then the problem is, you need to stick to the design system. It always works go back. So what's the problem you're trying to solve here with that feedback. I am sad that we have to wrap up. But before we go, I want to make sure that people know how to connect with you and the great resources that you offer in coaching and workshops.
Tim Yeo 38:24
So I run the website called the quiet achiever, the eye coach introverts if you can pack them, the ones without pretending to be extroverts, we've run this website for about a year and a half. And very soon we'll be introducing a new four week course, to help introverts do exactly the on topics like meetings, how to network better, how to public speak better. And a lot of the advice is going to be practical stuff that you can put into practice the very next day, and you should check it out.
Leigh Arredondo 38:54
Yeah, that's awesome. I think it's really wonderful. You're doing that and we'll have links for sure in the description and show notes. So anyone listening if you want to go to UX Cake.co and sign up for the newsletter, you will for sure hear about Tim Yeo's next workshop.
Tim Yeo 39:15
Thank you so much for the opportunity. It's been really good chatting up.
Leigh Arredondo 39:20
Thank you so much for joining me, Tim. Hey, if you enjoyed this slice of UX cake, please share this episode with a friend or a few. You can share it on social media even it really helps us spread the word and get this free content to more people. You can follow you UX Cake on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, and get all the episodes and show notes at UX Cake.co. Thank you so much for listening, and for sharing UX Cake