Equitable Education for Introverts: Providing Learning Opportunities That Prepare Nursing Students to Be Leaders.

The last century has witnessed a move to celebrating extroversion as the ideal and respected temperament, particularly in professional leadership positions. People traditionally view introversion as a negative personality trait and often equate it with shyness or a lack of social skills. Employers often award leadership positions to extroverts, based in large part on their ability to speak and interact easily. Some professions even require applicants to take personality tests to determine who will fit better based on their position on an introversion-extroversion scale. Paradoxically, a well-known study of top-performing companies found that all were led by individuals who possessed characteristics of introversion such as being reserved, mildmannered, modest, quiet, and humble. Cain, in her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, provides a compelling look into the reality of introversion and supports her work with decades of research. This work should be guiding the work of educators in every discipline and at every level, and perhaps most importantly at this critical point in time, in the field of nursing. The nursing profession is facing an unprecedented shortage, combined with increasing pressures to improve quality and safety of care. Although these changes obviously affect nurses in every area, nurse educators have an escalating responsibility to ensure students are prepared appropriately to lead the profession into an uncertain future. Nurse educators need to be advocates for introverted students, ensuring an inclusive and encouraging environment for all temperaments. The literature shares many similar definitions of introversion and extroversion. Cain defines introversion as ‘‘people who prefer quieter, more minimally stimulating environments. ’’ Conversely, ‘‘extroverts feel at their best and crave a high degree of stimulation. ’’ Helgoe notes that introverts gain energy reflecting and expend energy interacting, whereas extroverts gain energy by interacting and expend it by reflecting. When nurse educators consider introversion and extroversion using these connotations, it should significantly transform how they perceive students in their classrooms and ultimately how they communicate and educate. An estimated 35% to 50% of people fall somewhere on the introverted temperament side of the continuum. If this is true, then educators may be subliminally devaluing and marginalizing up to half of their students. Consider the students who select the back of the room as the most comfortable seating arrangement, who do not raise their hand to respond to questions or provide input into discussions, and who may not engage with the instructor on a conversational level. Common approaches educators take to engage the quiet students include calling on students randomly, having students engage in group work, and rewarding participation with points. The problem with these activities is that it can add stress for the introverted student, falsely inflate or deflate grades, and make for an uncomfortable classroom environment. Consider if the educator told extroverted students not to speak during the class, to sit in the back of the room, and not to interact with peers or the instructor for the entire class period. The likely response based on their inherent tendencies would be stress and perhaps even anger at the educator who is telling them to change. They may feel unappreciated and that something must be wrong with them for the instructor to expect them to change from what has always felt right and comfortable. Yet, this is the very environment educators impress on their introverted students on a regular basis. The literature offers little to demonstrate how this affects students in their careers, but clearly extroverts dominate in leadership positions in the majority of professions. This cultural norm suggests that nurse educators may not be preparing students for leadership positions or may even be dissuading students from pursuing