It's always the quiet ones

Analyzing Effective Leaders: Why Extraverts Are Not Always the Most Successful Bosses summarizes some of the research by Wharton professor Adam Grant which asks, which type of person is the most effective leader, an introvert or an extravert?

According to the article, it depends on the group the person is leading: introverts do better with a proactive team that needs someone to listen and act on their ideas, whereas as extraverts do better with a less proactive team, firing them up and motivating them.

What I also found interesting was the bias against introverted people as leaders:

Given these conclusions, why does the popular view persist that extraverts are better leaders across the board? The authors point to several possible reasons: One is that extraverts are often perceived as more effective because of a "halo effect." "This may occur because extraverted leaders match the prototypes of charismatic leaders that dominate both [Western and Eastern cultures] and are especially prevalent in business," they write. One online survey of 1,500 senior leaders earning at least six-figure salaries found that 65% actually saw introversion as a negative quality in terms of leadership.

It is also possible that an introverted person could believe that they would not make a great leader because they believe the bias and may not actively seek out opportunities for advancement. If you are an introvert with this belief, reading this article and some of the associated research may help to conquer your self-defeating beliefs.

On the bias

Jobacle had a post yesterday that encouraged people to explore their biases when it comes to careers--stereotyping by career, an outgrowth of Krumboltz's occupationism. The post linked to Project Implicit, a project that explores biases and I urge you to take some of the tests on the site to explore your biases.

Biases affect us in hiring and working with others, whether they are colleagues or clients, and a greater awareness--and an attempt to neutralize your biases--can only help make the workplace more fair.

In case you think I am chiding interviewers, no, job seekers have the same biases: a fat interviewer won't like me because I am so thin and beautiful, old people are afraid that young people will take their jobs, and they won't hire me because I am too old and a white male. I could go on with all of the nervous, half-beliefs that we all possess, which we believe are gospel in times of stress. Analyzing your biases can help you recognize them when they prey on you and help you mitigate or remove their effects.

Punctured

Ah, interview time: time to fluff out your hair, iron your underwear and carry your Tide stain stick concealed. But is it also the time to take out your piercings or cover your body art?

Because body art is usually voluntary, there are limited protections for possessors of body art.

• Cover Up the Body Art, from Job Dig
• Tattoos & Body Piercing: Avoiding Employment Discrimination Claims, appeared in New Hampshire Business Review, October 2004, By Andrea K. Johnstone and Laurel A. Van Buskirk
• A Piercing Question in the Workplace, from the OC Register. I like how they suggest that a low unemployment rate can mean more tolerance toward body modification, since I think that is a valid issue to consider.
  
• And check out some of the links about the US military policies in regards to body art/modification.
  

I don't know if anyone can definitively say that a voluntary body modification would be the straw that broke the library job offer. But there are a few ways you can deal with this issue:

• Check to see if there is a dress code policy for the organization that you are applying to. Piercings, as well as other art and modifications, may be listed in this policy.
  
• Search in your local newspaper for stories about body modification and the workplace, looking for local decisions or statements (some of these stories may not be local, but may still be useful).
  
• Check the websites for state or provincial guidelines in regards to dress codes and see if there are statements about body art or modifications (this could be important if you are relocating for work from a more tolerant to less body art tolerant clime).
  
• Prepare a copy of this research showing with omissions or insertions, just in case, whether you are interviewing for a position or have decided to come in and impress your colleagues with your pain tolerance on Monday morning.

IMHO: constantly talking about people's piercings and other assorted body art and referring to them with a winky-nudge-nudge about how discreet/discrete (in both senses) they are and how the possessors of such strange magic cannot be talked about as if they were, well, people, makes me nuts. Quit looking at shallow, surface differences and actually look at the person's abilities. I guess because the piercing is voluntary some people in charge of hiring--and library patrons, too--just don't want to be bothered with looking past the surface. However, this is one group that should be capable of looking past the cover, or at least be willing to read the blurb on the back.

Yes, I too have my moments: I really want to ask those guys with metal doughnuts in their lobes if walking into the wind makes them hear bells. But I hope that I wouldn't turn anyone down for a public service position--nor relegate them to a back room--if they had any piercings or body art. Though I might change my mind about a really ill-advised facial Nazi swastika. And if someone can tell me about the chiming, I really want to know.

Managing Millenials

I actually hate the use of types to categorize people--I'm an individual, but I think that because I'm a Gen-X--but if you are interested in the beliefs people may hold about your generation, you might want to check out these videos:

The Infamous 60 Minutes expose on Millenials. I really liked the underwear advice--does butt floss count? Get the feeling the wise interviewers and Millenial-tamers are ignoring the signs and feeding the animals at the zoo? They're not patronizing at all.

Managing Millenials from BNET



Wall-to-wall flannel, uncombed hair and sneers.

Generation Y Shoots Back. Watch this video if you ever felt you were dismissed by an employer because of your age and their pre-conceived generational horns/halos.

Sexy Librarian

I initially saw this post on the Brazen Careerist (who I think is a cleavage career guider and I both nod at or loathe her opinions, so this is not a recommendation to follow her blog) about how people--as young as traditional college grads--are thinking about or financing plastic surgery to give themselves a career boost. Or a start, if looks really matter that much. Apparently, there is some science behind this, or a really catchy press release for the book Looks: Why they matter more than you imagined.

Of course, this has implications for people looking for work: if your teeth are yellowish or your boobs need some support or you are asymmetrical--somewhere--can it affect your employment prospects or earnings over time? According to some of the sections of the book, yep, appearance matters (available on the publisher's website; I would also recommend the podcast since it focuses on looks in the workplace from hiring to evaluation). Since I have not read the book--on my shelf right now--I have some additional questions that I hope the book covers:

• What if you are too dark for the culture's beauty standards?
• Eyes aren't round or big enough?
• How aware are some people of the interplay of beauty and what they think is attractive?
  
• And of course, the eternal question: boobs or butt?
  

While researching this post, I came across I really depressing article from Dateline NBC where they tested a variety of scenarios--lost, dropped papers, cut in line--with models of both genders and average looking people of both genders, and, well, you guessed it, cuteness got better service. The author of the Looks book was quoted at several points about their tests and his own research.

Sorry for the delay in posting: two conferences and two presentations in two weeks was just too much. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Looking for workers Web 3.0 style

WSJ Careers released an article on recruiting Web 3.0 style. Libraries may be using these methods to recruit librarians--though we seem to be happy with the e-mailed resume, how 2001 of us!--and some of these tools, like the video interview are just an updated version of the telephone interview, a staple in libraries since the eighties. At least, for me, 1/2 of my interviews included a telephone screening interview.

The article did make me think of something (which sprang from my love/hate relationship with my own web camera): but can a technological interview gone right give you a "tech halo"? You might have heard of the halo effect. Halo effect in action: you look like the person who was in the position, who was stellar, and because you evoke fond, apple-pie-in-the-oven feelings, the interviewer just decides to hire you, regardless of how well you shake your schtick. Conversely, you can also have a "horns effect", where the interviewer prefers meringue to your apple. But what happens if you have mighty tech mojo but the next candidate has felt the evil eye of Logitech? The person suffering under the evil eye may be a better candidate than you but because the their camera wobbles and fades, you get the job and they get "better luck next time".

Could the quality of transmission be unfairly influencing our interviews?