Barbara Corcoran on the ABC series “Shark Tank.”
Mitch Haaseth | General Disney Entertainment Content | Getty Images
Barbara Corcoran almost missed out on the “best hire” she ever made – all because the potential employee seemed too introverted.
“When I started my company [in 1973]“I needed people to join my real estate company,” the millionaire investor and real estate entrepreneur said in a recent TikTok video. “But I had little to offer and good people were really hard to come by.”
Enter Esther Kaplan, who would eventually become Corcoran’s business partner and longtime president of the Corcoran Group. But at the time, Kaplan didn’t seem like the right fit for the sales position she had applied for, Corcoran said.
“She was a petite woman, dressed in a small knit suit with small pearl buttons, and spoke so quietly that I could barely understand what she was saying,” Corcoran said. “I had already learned that great salespeople are usually loud and enthusiastic. So I gave Esther my card and told her that I would call her if anything opened up since I had no intention of calling her.”
Corcoran remembered watching Kaplan take the card and put it in a carefully organized purse with labeled dividers. The unexpected order and attention to detail appealed to Corcoran, she said.
“With a mind like that, I knew I wanted my business in her purse,” Corcoran said. “I immediately opened a position for her and told her I really wanted to take her under my wing and teach her everything she needed to know to sell.”
It’s not about becoming a superstar salesman for Kaplan, Corcoran added. Rather, it was about putting Kaplan in the spotlight – and figuring out how she could best help the company down the road. “She had all the necessary qualities that I didn’t have, and two years later we were running the company side by side,” Corcoran said.
You don’t have to be an extrovert to be a great leader. According to bestselling author Susan Cain, introverts typically share three traits that can help anyone excel in leadership positions:
- A conservative and calculated approach to risk taking
- High level of creativity
- Effective problem-solving skills
Still, introverts often feel like they have to emulate stereotypical extroverted personalities in order to get ahead.
“The bias in our culture against introversion is so deep and profound, and we internalize it from such an early age,” Cain, herself an introvert, said in a 2012 “Talks at Google” talk. Introverts are “regularly passed over” for leadership positions, she added.
Your workplace challenge: Create an environment where both behavioral styles can coexist.
“This two-tiered structure of our view of personality results in a colossal waste of talent, energy and luck,” Cain said. “We need to take a much more yin and yang approach to create a balance between the two styles.”
In Kaplan’s case, she helped run the Corcoran Group for more than 20 years, overseeing filing systems, finances and the legal aspects of the company. Corcoran is responsible for public relations, advertising, marketing and recruiting, she said.
In 2000, Kaplan was replaced as president and CEO by Pamela Liebman. The following year, Corcoran sold the company for $66 million.
Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to “Shark Tank,” on which Barbara Corcoran appears as a panelist.
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