In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen - HIGHLIGHTS: Susan Cain

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

We've curated a special 10-minute version of the podcast for those in a hurry.   Here you can listen to the full episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/susan-cain-why-introverts-make-great-leaders-staying/id1614211565?i=1000779980999What does it take to thrive as a quiet person in a world that rewards the loudest voice? Nicolai Tangen sits down with Susan Cain, author of the bestsellers Quiet and Bittersweet, whose work gave millions of introverts a voice. They explore why authenticity will be the great advantage in the age of AI, what defines the "highly sensitive" 15 to 20 percent of the population, and how our culture shifted from valuing character to valuing personality. Susan explains why introverted leaders often deliver stronger results, the hidden cost of "toxic positivity", and how she calibrates her own days to avoid burnout. She also reflects on the bittersweet outlook, the joy found in sorrow, and her advice on how young people can rediscover who they really are. Tune in for a thoughtful conversation on personality, leadership and what makes us human.In Good Company is hosted by Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management. New full episodes every Wednesday, and don't miss our Highlight episodes every Friday.The production team for this episode includes Isabelle Karlsson, Karoline Woie, Olav Vhile and PLAN-B's Niklas Figenschau Johansen and Håkon Klemsdal. Background research was conducted by Une Solheim.Watch the episode on YouTube: Norges Bank Investment Management - YouTubeWant to learn more about the fund? The fund | Norges Bank Investment Management (nbim.no)Follow Nicolai Tangen on LinkedIn: Nicolai Tangen | LinkedInFollow NBIM on LinkedIn: Norges Bank Investment Management: Administrator for bedriftsside | LinkedInFollow NBIM on Instagram: Explore Norges Bank Investment Management on Instagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, everybody. Tune in to this short version of the podcast, which we do every Friday for the long version. Tune in on Wednesdays. Hi, everyone. I'm Nicola Tangen, the CEO of the Norwegian wealth fund. And today I'm in really good company with Susan Kane. Now, Susan is the author who gave the world of introverts a voice because her book, Quiet, spent eight years on the bestseller list. And her TED talk has been watched by millions and millions of people. She changed how millions of us think about personality, leadership and creativity. And Susan, warm welcome. Thank you so much, Nicola.

It is such a pleasure to be here with you. Susan, I'd love to start with AI because the world is changing. Is it changing the relationship between introverts and extroverts? I don't know that it's changing the relationship. I mean, maybe you mean between introverts and extroverts. But it's very interesting with these technologies. in general, I often feel that they often at the beginning offer more promise for introverts to have multiple ways of communicating beyond the conventional ones of being always in person,

always on, always activated. And then somehow they end up often becoming additional platforms for self-presentation because that's so prevalent in our culture. So I actually with AI, adopting a bit of a weight and see attitude. Yeah. There is a new expression which I hear, which is the kind of the high agency people, the people who kind of really leverage the technology to make them even louder.

And I'm just wondering whether that's one of those things, which amplifies the extroverts even more. What do you think? Well, not necessarily. I mean, from the dawn of the internet, there's actually been this kind of concept of the people call it sometimes, the online extrovert, the in-person, I'm sorry, yeah, online extrovert, in-person introvert.

And introverts are just as high agency as extroverts in terms of having goals that they're excited about, projects that they want to accomplish, and being, having high agency in the service of those goals that they care about. And in fact, I would say what is singular about introverts or what distinguishes them is that they tend to focus on one or two or three goals in their lives. They tend to focus on people in their lives that they really care about. If they're committed to a given company or to leading a company, they're like really, really, really committed. And so they're high agency in that sense. And in that sense, being able to mobilize AI towards those highly directed goals can be incredibly amplifying and power.

Susan, what are the implications for leadership? How should introverts and extroverts be led differently, if they should? Oh, how should they be led differently? And we should talk also about the difference between introverted and extroverted leaders. But yeah, in terms of being led differently, it's really the idea of leading the actual person as opposed to just leading an undifferentiated mass of humans, it really applies here, of course, because introverts and extroverts have incredibly different needs

for a perfect workday. So if you go back to that idea of equilibrium, and what is it that gets each person into a state of equilibrium? And by the way, so less sensitive people, have nervous systems that react much less to stimulation. So for them, the downside and the danger is that they're not having enough stimulation coming at them, and then they can start to feel unhappy and bored and sluggish. So we have to take care of that as well.

So you want to be creating environments where each employee can have access to the proper amount of stimulation for them so that they can be spending as much of their time in a state of equilibrium as possible. So this shows up in terms of how do we design our office space. Are we making sure that we have spaces where there's lots of interaction and stimulation and noise, which all of us, why introvert or extrovert, we all want that at some point during the day? And then do we have places in the office where people can go to be quiet and focus and have their heads down? In terms of how do we design schedules, an introvert will probably function at their best if they can have a schedule where they can focus a lot uninterrupted and get into that state of flow. Whereas extroverted workers will need that some of the time because all good creative work needs that.

But they're going to start feeling unhappy if they don't have enough social interaction during the day. So thinking about how do you structure the day, like do you want to maybe have designated zones where there's uninterrupted flow time, no meetings, and then zones where the meetings can happen? In terms of how do you run those meetings, how do you make sure that you're hearing from everyone? There is a study outside from the Kellogg School of Business that found that in your typical large meeting, you have three people doing something. 70% of the talking. And that is a disaster. If you assume that on average, everyone has the same number of good and bad ideas.

And now we know we're only hearing from a few of the most vocal or dominant or senior people, whatever. Well, that's a lot of bad, a lot of good ideas we're not hearing. And there might be an overweeding of less good ideas. They are extrovert and also the most highly paid. Often, that's true, which then it creates the cycle keep on going. Why do we promote so many extroverts, you know, charismatic people to become leaders? Even then when they're not, you know, first of all, why do we do it?

And then, of course, are they actually better or are they actually worse? Well, I think there's two reasons. One of them is, you know, the very word charisma means a person who has a kind of magical quality about them. And we all love the magical quality. And it's a great gift to have that. And people like to be around it. So, I mean, that's just one really simple explanation. But then the other one is this culture that we live in.

I was talking about before that since the 20th century, we have lived in this culture of personality where we're taught from a very early age that what's most important is to be the most dominant, and to talk the most. There are studies that show that people will rate as more intelligence, someone who speaks more loudly and who speaks more quickly and all of these things. But in terms of the actual outcomes, what's interesting about it is there are many studies suggesting that introverted leaders deliver outcomes that are as strong or in some cases

stronger than extroverted leaders. And that's a really interesting phenomenon. And we could talk about the reasons why that is. Because I think there's a few of them. One is, so there's a study, you're probably familiar with the book, Good to Great, Jim Collins' famous work. And in that study, he looked at the top performing CEOs in the United States at that time. And it was 11 of them.

And he found that all 11 of these CEOs were described by their colleagues as quiet, unassuming, soft-spoken, shy people, which is not, I think, what we expect. But they were also described as having a fierce sense of dedication to their companies and like a real commitment and a real vision for their companies. And this gets into the heart of what introverted people are like. Because I was saying this before, introverts by nature, we tend to invest deeply in the subjects that we really care about and in the people that we really care about. And if you have an employee who's incredibly talented and dedicated in that way, they can end up becoming incredible leaders, but they'll often get to that leadership point through a different means.

It's like they're getting there through their commitment, and they end up acquiring all this expertise, they end up building networks with other people who share their passion, and they end up attracting people around them who also share their sense of commitment. So it's a very different, route to that leadership position, but it can be incredibly powerful. So now we are establishing a new company and it's called Susan Kane Limited. And we produce great stuff and do incredible, we just do incredible things.

Now, you are the CEO, you are now building up this company, recruiting the people you want, making the mix of people you want, do whatever you want. Just how do you go about it? What is the right mix? Who do you recruit? How do you think about all these things? Well, I mean, I assume you're asking kind of from a temperament point of view. And what I would really want to do is create, is higher a mix of people, a mix of introverts and extroverts.

We know that teams who have introverts and extroverts on them, mixed teams, do the best. Because introverts and extroverts really like each other. Like, they like working with each other. They complement each other. And you see it in marriages too. I mean, I'm married to an extrovert, and that's not an accident. So that's what I would be looking for in the hiring. And I would also probably be looking for a co-CEO or a deputy or something like that who is more extroverted than I am.

So that there would be, we each get to play to our own strengths instead of having one person try to do everything.