Quiet by Susan Cain Page B

person who finds it difficult to introduce himself to strangers might establish a presence online and
then
extend these relationships into the real world.

    What would have happened if the Subarctic Survival Situation had been conducted online, with the benefit of all the voices in the room—the Rosa Parkses and the Craig Newmarks and the Darwin Smiths? What if it had been a group of proactive castaways led by an introvert with a gift for calmly encouraging them to contribute? What if there had been an introvert and an extrovert sharing the helm, like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.? Might they have reached the right result?
    It’s impossible to say. No one has ever run these studies, as far as I know—which is a shame. It’s understandable that the HBS model of leadership places such a high premium on confidence and quick decision-making. If assertive people tend to get their way, then it’s a useful skill for leaders whose work depends on influencing others. Decisiveness inspires confidence, while wavering (or even appearing to waver) can threaten morale.
    But one can take these truths too far; in some circumstances quiet, modest styles of leadership may be equally or more effective. As I left the HBS campus, I stopped by a display of notable
Wall Street Journal
cartoons in the Baker Library lobby. One showed a haggard executive looking at a chart of steeply falling profits.
    â€œIt’s all because of Fradkin,” the executive tells his colleague. “He has terrible business sense but great leadership skills, and everyone is following him down the road to ruin.”
Does God Love Introverts? An Evangelical’s Dilemma
    If Harvard Business School is an East Coast enclave for the global elite, my next stop was an institution that’s much the opposite. It sits on a sprawling, 120-acre campus in the former desert and current exurb of Lake Forest, California. Unlike Harvard Business School, it admits anyone who wants to join. Families stroll the palm-tree-lined plazas and walkways in good-natured clumps. Children frolic in man-made streams and waterfalls. Staff wave amiably as they cruise by in golf carts. Wear whatever you want: sneakers and flip-flops are perfectly fine. This campus is presided over not by nattily attired professors wielding words like
protagonist
and
case method
, but by a benign Santa Claus–like figure in a Hawaiian shirt and sandy-haired goatee.
    Withan average weekly attendance of 22,000 and counting, Saddleback Church is one of the largest and most influential evangelical churches in the nation. Its leader is Rick Warren, author of
The Purpose Driven Life
, one of the best-selling books of all time, and the man who delivered the invocation at President Obama’s inauguration. Saddlebackdoesn’t cater to world-famous leaders the way HBS does, but it plays no less mighty a role in society. Evangelical leaders have the ear of presidents; dominate thousands of hours of TV time; and run multimillion-dollar businesses, with the most prominent boasting their own production companies, recording studios, and distribution deals with media giants like Time Warner.
    Saddleback also has one more thing in common with Harvard Business School: its debt to—and propagation of—the Culture of Personality.
    It’s a Sunday morning in August 2006, and I’m standing at the center of a dense hub of sidewalks on Saddleback’s campus. I consult a signpost, the kind you see at Walt Disney World, with cheerful arrows pointing every which way: Worship Center, Plaza Room, Terrace Café, Beach Café. A nearby poster features a beaming young man in bright red polo shirt and sneakers: “Looking for a new direction? Give traffic ministry a try!”
    I’m searching for the open-air bookstore, where I’ll be meeting Adam McHugh, a local evangelical pastor with whom I’ve been corresponding. McHugh is an avowed introvert, and we’ve been