Antioch University AURA - Antioch University Repository and Archive Student & Alumni Scholarship, including Dissertations & Theses Dissertations & Theses 2016 A Method to My Quietness: A Grounded Theory Study of Living and Leading with Introversion Leatrice Oram Follow this and additional works at: http://aura.edu/etds Part of the Higher Education Commons, Higher Education Administration Commons, Leadership Studies Commons, Organizational Behavior and Theory Commons, and the Personality and Social Contexts Commons Recommended Citation Oram, Leatrice, "A Method to My Quietness: A Grounded Theory Study of Living and Leading with Introversion" (2016).edu/etds/301 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Student & Alumni Scholarship, including Dissertations & Theses at AURA - Antioch University Repository and Archive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations & Theses by an authorized administrator of AURA - Antioch University Repository and Archive. For more information, please contact dpenrose@antioch.edu, wmcgrath@antioch. A METHOD TO MY QUIETNESS: A GROUNDED THEORY STUDY OF LIVING AND LEADING WITH INTROVERSION LEATRICE ORAM A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Ph.
in Leadership and Change Program of Antioch University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy July 2016 This is to certify that the Dissertation entitled: A METHOD TO MY QUIETNESS: A GROUNDED THEORY STUDY OF LIVING AND LEADING WITH INTROVERTSION prepared by Leatrice Oram is approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Leadership and Change. Approved by: Elizabeth Holloway, Ph., Chair date Laura Morgan Roberts, Ph., Committee Member date Harriet Schwartz, Ph., Committee Member date Sandie Turner, Ph., External Reader date Copyright 2016 Leatrice Oram All rights reserved Acknowledgments The last three years would have proved impossible if I had not had the support of many dear friends, family, and colleagues. For all the times I had to be away, whether in Yellow Springs or just in my study upstairs, I am gratefully indebted. Thanks are due to Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking (2012) for inspiring me and for liking my dweeby, fangirl posts on her Facebook page.
You will be one of the first recipients of this dissertation, like it or not. Thanks go out to my colleagues at Antioch University New England for allowing me a flexible schedule to get my work done and for the financial underwriting of my degree program. Thank you to C13—my doctoral squad—for embracing my introverted self and for opening my eyes time and time again; from you and with you, I will keep learning. To my oenophile intervention team of Dani Chesson and Maria Dezenberg especially, you are truth-tellers and crack-ups, muses and graces.
To my Seattle crew: William, Kara, Benjamin, and Julia Laverde, thank you for opening your home to me, for all that sushi, and for making me a movie star. To my coding team, Dr. Timothy Eklin and Dr. Aviva Cohen, thank you for your time and expertise.
And to my research partner, Dr. Roxanne Swogger, you softie, you big-brained, laughing warrior. Saturdays at 9:30 will never be the same. We did it! To the participants in this study: I am in awe of the ease and exactitude with which you told me your stories and showed me your realities of being introverts and leaders.
Without you, this would not be, period. A special thanks to P22, whose verbal acuity provided the title of this work. i My gratitude goes out to the faculty and staff of the Antioch University PhD in Leadership and Change. You have fostered a unique program of the most marvelous, evolving design.
You model what it means to be responsive, relational, and reflexive leaders and scholars. For those who support our students’ research—Deb Baldwin, Cathy Boswell, Vanessa Helgerson, and Emily DeMaria virtually and Abby Jones on my campus—you make our small program very powerful. To Margaret Morgan and Leslee Creighton, thank you for all you know and for your light touch. Laurien Alexandre, extravert extraordinaire, you saw where I was going long before I did.
(By the way, it’s still all about the dog.) To my committee: Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts, for introducing me to positive identity and positive organizational scholarship; Dr. Harriet Schwartz who helped me discover discovering; and Dr. Sandie Turner for her thoughtful, close reading, thank you all.
And finally to Dr. Elizabeth Holloway, you were combobulated when I was discombobulated, funny and disarming when I was in a tizzy, and certain when I was unsure. You were utterly practical, incisive, and direct. On every call, in every note, on every Google Hangout, you grokked my ideas and you grokked me.
In other words, you were my perfect dissertation chair and I admire you deeply. To my particular village—Wendy, Kelly, Kate, Cis, BeeP, Geeba, GeeBee, DIR, Audie, Uncles Sarah and Gene, the Divine Miss M, Mel, El Miguel Grande, Impy, Grammy, Nick, Deb, Dad, and Mike—your encouragement from near, far, here, there, and everywhere mattered so very, very much. And finally, to Andrew and Louisa, my own true loves, my steadfast, ardent hearts. this is for you, first and last.
I love you and our lives together. Let’s go play. ii Dedication To Andrew Thomas Oram and Louisa Theodora Oram, for your enduring love and patience. To my mom, Sabina Thorne Johnson, who would have a PhD herself if she hadn’t had her hands full.
I wish you were here with me still. You would have pulled this quotation from your mighty storehouse of memory: “Indeed what is there that does not appear marvellous, when it comes to our knowledge the first time? How many things, too, are looked upon as quite impossible, until they have actually been effected?” (Pliny the Elder, trans. 1855) iii Abstract Leadership scholar-practitioners must create a more sustainable, diverse, and equitable future, fostering emergence and development of resilient, competent leaders, including those who may have been previously overlooked. Leadership studies, particularly those situated in early trait and behavior paradigms, have long privileged extraverted leaders as ideal.
The scholarly conversation is limited on introverted leaders; moreover, most of that literature depicts introversion as either a pathological construct associated with shyness and social anxiety, or includes introversion only by omission, as a state of deficit-of-extraversion. This study instead began with positive inquiry, framing introversion as a positive individual difference, and explored the lived experiences of introverted leaders. This research coalesced perspectives from positive psychology, positive identity at work, and positive organizational scholarship to inquire into introversion as a positive leadership construct. In this constructivist grounded theory study, leaders who identified as introverts and who reported introversion typology on the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®) were asked to reflect on their experiences of introversion, leadership identity development, and professional and personal pursuits.
From the amassed data emerged three theoretical propositions. First, enacting leadership has significant costs for an introverted leader’s energy and identity. Second, an introverted leader must adopt a conscious learning orientation to leadership development, including experimentation with possible leader identities. Third, effective introverted leadership is dependent on understanding the powerful intersectionality of introversion, relationship, and identity.
This dissertation is available in open access at AURA, http://aura.edu/ and OhioLink ETD Center, https://etd.edu/etd iv Table of Contents Abstract. iv Table of Contents .v List of Tables. vii List of Figures. viii Chapter I: Introduction .1 Statement of Purpose .3 Situating the Research and the Researcher .4 Introversion: The Construct .9 Significance to Theory and Practice.15 Overview of the Dissertation.15 Chapter II: Review of the Literature .17 Examining the Construct of Introversion-Extraversion .18 Introversion-Extraversion in Leadership Studies .20 Introversion-Extraversion in Wider Cultural and Global Perspectives .25 Reframing Introversion as a Positive Leadership Construct .32 Positive Organizational Scholarship .34 Strengths-Based Approaches .35 Identity Literature as the Foundation to Positive Identity at Work .36 Introversion and Positive Identity .44 Chapter III: Methodology .46 Tracing the Path That Led to Choosing Constructivist Grounded Theory .47 Need for Qualitative Research in Management and Leadership Studies .48 Origins of a Methodological Revolution: The Discovery of Grounded Theory .51 Methods in a Constructivist Grounded Theory Study .78 Chapter IV: Findings.81 Where It All Happens: Contexts for the Core and Primary Dimensions .83 Core Dimension: Reflecting and Reflexing .86 Primary Dimension: Observing and Listening .95 Primary Dimension: Stretching .100 Primary Dimension: Engaging .103 Primary Dimension: Depleting .121 Primary Dimension: Retreating .128 Chapter V: Discussion and Implications.129 What We Discovered Together: Co-Construction of Understanding and Meaning .130 Models of Living and Leading With Introversion .135 Living With Introversion: The Gibbous Moon .138 Leading With Introversion: Imagining A Leadership Round Table .139 Living and Leading With Introversion .144 Theoretical Proposition One .145 Theoretical Proposition Two .149 Theoretical Proposition Three .154 Implications for Practice .157 Limitations of the Study .161 Recommendations for Future Research .191 vi List of Tables Table 4.1 Core Dimension: Reflecting and Reflexing .2 Primary Dimension: Observing and Listening .3 Primary Dimension: Stretching .4 Primary Dimension: Engaging.5 Primary Dimension: Depleting .6 Primary Dimension: Retreating .124 vii List of Figures Figure 4.1 With Self (Internal), In Passage (Transitional), and With Others (External) Contexts .2 Relative Connections Between Contexts, Core, and Primary Dimensions .1 Participants’ Lived Experiences of Introversion .2 Social Processes Involved in Living and Leading With Introversion .142 viii 1 Chapter I: Introduction A bird’s eye view of the study of leadership reveals long-standing, vacillating answers to the question, “What makes a great leader?” Early leadership theorists (e., Gibb, 1947; Stogdill, 1948) originated what is now called the trait paradigm, characterized by the belief that there were leaders and non-leaders, and that what made someone (usually a man) effective was inborn.
Studies bloomed, attesting to ideal demographics, skills, abilities, and personality traits (e., Bono & Judge, 2004; Judge & Bono, 2000; Moss, Ritossa, & Ngu, 2006). In these views, attributes like intelligence, conscientiousness, and extraversion were paramount, all issuing from the individual. Even as later theorists explored leadership with more complex, relational frameworks versus focusing on a single leadership entity, researchers still sought to identify some transcendent quality (e., Bono, Hooper, & Yoon, 2012; Brown & Reilly, 2009; Hautala, 2006, 2008; Kalshoven, Den Hartog, & DeHoogh, 2011; Rubin, Munz, & Bommer, 2005). I find myself drawn to more practical ideas; I have long been interested in how individuals integrate who they are and what they do.
I locate this interest specifically in how individuals develop leadership identity, their experiences of leadership emergence, and how they continue to develop as leaders, either in congruence or conflict with their understanding of their own personal identities. Increasingly, I have come to believe that my innate introversion plays a significant part in the choices I have made and in how I make meaning of pivotal experiences on my own leadership path. I have found little scholarship that sheds positive light on introversion and leadership, while there is ample research on extraversion as exemplary and predictive of leadership effectiveness. Moreover, there are countless studies and scales where introversion in leadership and management settings is seen at best as a lack of extraversion (Cattell & Schuerger, 2003; Costa & McCrae, 1992) and at worst as a social and functional 2 pathology (e., Bauer, Erdogan, Liden, & Wayne, 2006; Lee & Ashton, 2004, 2015; Mumford et al., 2000; Ryckman, Thornton, Gold, & Collier, 2011).
By coalescing perspectives from psychology, leadership theory, and identity literature, then framing them through the fields of positive organizational scholarship and positive identity at work, I approach introversion as a leadership construct from a positive versus deficit stance. I interviewed leaders who identified as introverts and were typed as such on the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®) and asked them to reflect on their perceptions of their introversion and their work lives. The stories that resulted helped illustrate a fuller range of participants’ lived experiences as introverted leaders.