185 Models for Sensitive, Introverted Leadership
Quiet Messenger: Redefining leadership & messaging for introverts & sensitive souls
Release Date: 06/24/2021
Quiet Messenger: Redefining leadership & messaging for introverts & sensitive souls
We have a tendency to underestimate quiet leaders. Or we assume anyone successful ISN’T a quiet leader. This hit home for me when my friend said she wanted to come to my Gathering of Quiet Leaders. As an Empowerment Coach, Mindfulness Teacher and Journaling Expert for ambitious over-achieving humans, Ashley’s got 11,000+ followers for each of her biz and podcast accounts on IG. Her voice is definitely getting heard, and she’s no beginner. Listen to our co-hosted convo to reorient and peel away layers of internalized bias. AND if you’ve got a more mature business and want to be...
info_outlineQuiet Messenger: Redefining leadership & messaging for introverts & sensitive souls
When we choose to take our work deeper and bring others into it, some inquiries arise: How do we create offerings that forward our message and mission, that are thought leadership, personified? How do we share in ways that help people feel our offering and that light our fire and keep it burning? And when what we’re creating is so potent and felt, how do we convey it CLEARLY? Recording this episode with my friend — author, memoirist, caregiver for her husband with Parkinson's and creative midwife for other writers and caregivers — became a transmission of energy, of feeling. We’ll...
info_outlineQuiet Messenger: Redefining leadership & messaging for introverts & sensitive souls
We are made up of those who came before us, and the story of our lineage (which doesn’t have to be blood relatives) may hold clues for how we want to show up. Ancestral work can be a way to understand our own voices and can be healing for us and our leadership, helping us show up as fuller, more rooted versions of ourselves. For quiet leaders, ancestral work can create a pathway back to our own power, to feel safe to be ourselves in ways we haven’t before, to take up more space and to speak quietly but clearly. In episode 206 of Quiet Messenger, I’ll help you investigate the...
info_outlineQuiet Messenger: Redefining leadership & messaging for introverts & sensitive souls
The final step in rekindling your work is to SHARE it. To be leaders and create ripple effects, we can’t stay in our creative caves. Our work needs to live out in the world in order to do its magic. But this step doesn’t just “happen” when you’re someone who may rarely feel ANY nudges to share publicly. Episode 205 of Quiet Messenger is dedicated to helping you step out of your creative cave...without disconnecting from your creativity (or yourself). In this episode, I talk about… Two questions to ask yourself in order to share your leadership if you’re...
info_outlineQuiet Messenger: Redefining leadership & messaging for introverts & sensitive souls
After a season of following the sparks of inspiration, my creative fire was rekindled. I was finally ready to create again. Exploring what this work artistically and creatively wanted to become turned into a many-month process. We often get advice but wonder how to apply it, especially as quiet leaders that don’t see that many leaders out there like us. Episode 204 of Quiet Messenger is packed with the how. I share exactly what I did – thought processes, exercises, and all! In this episode, I talk about… Why I had to burn things down before I got the spark of what to create How I...
info_outlineQuiet Messenger: Redefining leadership & messaging for introverts & sensitive souls
If we don’t want to do business + leadership the way it’s always been done, we can’t keep using the same tools. Traditional planning aims for what you already know. But what if we want to end up somewhere different…and we don’t yet know what that looks like? Here’s what happened on my biz sabbatical when I let following the sparks of inspiration be my method of “planning.” In this episode, I share… How I infused excitement and fire back into my work, without “trying” to Why following your yeses is a counter-culture act of rebellion How to lean into the...
info_outlineQuiet Messenger: Redefining leadership & messaging for introverts & sensitive souls
Think of a plant that’s been in a pot that’s too small for too long. It’s grown as much as it can in that container. When you give that plant a bigger pot, its roots grow deeper and spread out to take up more space. Until finally you start to see fresh growth above the soil. I was like that rootbound plant that had outgrown its pot. And going on sabbatical gave me all that fresh soil. But before I could rekindle my work and feel creative flow again, I needed to expand my root system. In this episode, I share… The four pillars that led to stability for me (and maybe you)...
info_outlineQuiet Messenger: Redefining leadership & messaging for introverts & sensitive souls
Do you ever feel resistance to sharing and super OVER the way things are done? Uninspired and out of alignment with your work? Funky that your business hasn’t caught up to your values? In the past decade, I’ve learned this is usually a cue that I’ve outgrown my current business. In this episode, I share… A framework for rekindling fire in our work The practical - what I put in place to go on sabbatical How a brief hiatus from my business turned into a year-long sabbatical My vulnerable story of what led to breakdown & need for sabbatical How removing pressure on my...
info_outlineQuiet Messenger: Redefining leadership & messaging for introverts & sensitive souls
Many of us view being consistent and reliable as a badge of honor. It’s natural and inevitable in the productivity culture we live in. But what if we redefined consistency? What if we recognized that consistency isn’t a rigid thing? That it’s about continuing to show up and giving yourself what you need to do that. AND what showing up looks like might be fluid. Especially if you’re highly sensitive or neurodivergent and struggle to keep up. That’s what I’ve learned from doing 200 episodes of my podcast...and taking almost 8 years to do it. In episode 200, we...
info_outlineQuiet Messenger: Redefining leadership & messaging for introverts & sensitive souls
This is for you if you’re neurodivergent, suspect you are, love someone who is, or are simply ADHD-curious. For years, I suspected I was neurodivergent, that my brain worked differently than others. BUT I thought of ADHDers as bold, rash, outspoken and disorganized risk takers with overflowing energy. I, on the other hand, was a careful, shy, sensitive overthinker who ran out of steam by the afternoon. It didn’t seem possible to match up the view I had of ADHD with how I saw myself as an HSP (highly sensitive person). Until I read about masking. Kat and I talk about: Busting...
info_outlineOften as introverts and sensitive folks in a loud, outward-focused world, we have needs that get overlooked or make us feel weak or “too much” in some way.
Whether it’s a need to leave early from a social situation when we’re tapped out, or to retreat to private space to ride an emotional wave, or to have less work tasks in a day to ease overwhelm and fully focus on each, those needs matter.
We are allowed to set up our businesses and our work around the needs we have as sensitive introverts.
The problem happens when all we see are leaders who are “on” all the time, who answer messages instantly and engage vigorously online, who manage 20 clients and five offerings, who always have the loudest voice in the room, who go from meeting to meeting without needing to take the rest of the afternoon off to recharge, who are direct and bold and decisive and fast.
When those are the leaders getting most of the airspace, we may think it’s not possible to be a successful introverted, sensitive, deep processing or quiet leader without changing who we are or living at our depleted edge all the time.
But that’s not the case. It IS possible to do business the way your body & soul need it to be.
You just might need to see examples of people like you who are already doing it to understand that it’s possible.
To recognize…
“Ahhhh, there IS a way.”
“Oh, I get it. This is what that looks like.”
That’s where modeling comes in.
As in Role Models. Specifically Quiet Messenger Role Models.
So how do we find more models of quiet leadership that represent us?
That’s what today’s episode is all about.
Listen in.
Deeper support from me:
- What’s your Messenger Archetype? Take the quiz.
- Grab your free Message Clarity Kit.
- The Quiet Messenger Mastermind is an intimate circle of women leaders and deep feelers who like cozy spaces for connection, growth and processing and who want to feel solid, confident & consistent in their messaging to grow a movement that matters ~ both to the world and to their business’ bottom line.
Resources for Quiet Messengers
PODCASTS
- Quiet Messenger – Adria Sophia (me!)
- The League of Extraordinary Introverts – Katherine Mackenzie Smith
- The Quiet Rebels Podcast with Mai-kee Tsang
- The Chronicles of an Introverted Black Woman – Jeanette Hendrix
- Unapologetically Sensitive – Patricia Young
TED TALKS
- Sarah Corbett – Activism Needs Introverts
- Susan Cain – Blueprint for a Quiet Revolution
- Marwa Azab – Are You Too Sensitive? Should You Change?
- Nikki Ling – Quiet Confidence: Follow the Introverted Leader
BLOGS
- Introvert, My Dear – introvertdear.com/
- The Quiet Revolution – quietrev.com/
What’s your favorite resource for introverted leaders or sensitive souls? Let me know over on Instagram.
Warmth,
Adria