Worn Out by an Extrovert? You Can Go ‘Gray.’

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The Introvert’s Dilemma

I’m an introvert who manages a small team of remote workers, all people I knew prior to taking a manager position. I did not work closely with any of my team prior to taking this position, and we rarely interacted. Now, of course, we interact much more often, but I find that one of them, a very nice woman, is my social opposite — she’s an extrovert who needs a lot of interaction and attention.

Her communication is also frequently unprofessional in either tone (starting emails with “Yo, cool chick” or describing a mistake as “pooping her pants”) or substance (gossip about co-workers or stories about her mother-in-law). A normal day with her looks like receiving at least three to four emails, 10 to 12 Zoom chat messages and at least one phone call, almost none of it about work.

I’ve felt obligated to accommodate some of this, both to maintain a good working relationship with her and because I know I need to grow to be a good manager. Growth involves being uncomfortable. But I find these interactions draining and, when the content is juvenile or about office politics, irritating.

How do I set boundaries that allow us to maintain a good rapport but also respect my time and desire to keep it professional?

— Anonymous

Draining? I can certainly imagine. Irritating? No doubt.

But first I want to say I’m impressed by your acknowledgment that part of being a manager is encouraging the growth of not just your direct reports but yourself. It’s admirable, this impulse to pay attention to what employees need for success while also taking steps to improve yourself as a professional and as a human being.

I get the feeling that your employee’s problem may be not her extroversion but her lack of boundaries. Many of us joke around and say revealing things about ourselves to our co-workers — sometimes even our managers. (As a manager of editorial teams in multiple jobs, I’ve been guilty of doing the same thing.) We all need to feel connected, and human, and understood. Even (or especially!) in work environments.

My feeling is that you should not feed the beast. As in: You should not respond to the contents of her emails, chat messages and phone calls that have nothing to do with work.

You might also, when you are confronted by these messages, issue direct responses to her along the lines of “I have a lot on my plate and need to keep us focused on work today.” A friend recently told me about the concept of “gray rocking,” in which someone who is being subjected to another person’s unwanted behavior reacts to the offending individual’s attempts to provoke by simply going silent or responding in the most tepid, “boring” — that is, “gray” — way possible. The idea is that the offending individual will eventually give up his or her search for validation and go elsewhere.

This might be too extreme a measure to take, but I do think that remaining relatively quiet in response to her provocations might make your employee more conscious of them, and help her delineate what is work-related or -appropriate and what isn’t. Perhaps she just needs a little nudge to understand the meaning of professionally pertinent.