No one would call me an introvert. I’m the person who will almost always choose the room where I know no one over the room where everybody knows your name. All that moving around the world growing up made me comfortable talking with strangers. But I also have the (introvert’s) need for a close circle of friends and a lot of “me” time.

In The Introvert’s Guide to Success in Business and Leadership,  Lisa Petrilli makes clear that the introvert-extrovert divide isn’t clear cut–and that many of us share traits from both categories. And we need to understand these, and understand how to use our strengths to thrive.

The book is at heart, however, a primer for introverts on how to thrive at work:

Being an introvert is not a disadvantage… Being an introvert can be a real advantage in business and leadership. Introverts love the world of ideas, we love to reflect, and we thrive on deep relationships with a small number of people who become pillars in our life.

Read my complete book review here, including Petrilli’s 3 tips for managing introverts in the workplace.

Photo by Chris Brown (Flickr).