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When you think of people who are born to lead, what type of personality do you think of? Most likely, you think of extroverts - people who are charming and sociable. However, a new study indicates that extroverts are not the best leaders. In fact, they do only slightly better than shy introverts. Indeed, the personality of the naturally born leader may surprise you.

As The Washington Post explains, any leader in any organization is, no matter what their job title suggests, a salesperson. The person at the top of the pile spends much of his days pitching to clients, persuading employees or sweet-talking funders. Indeed, many people would assume that extroverts would make the greatest salespeople. However, a 2001 meta-analysis that examined 35 studies and 4,000 salespeople found that the relationship between extraversion and sales performance was 0.07 - or basically 0.

A recent study that will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science further hammers the point home. Conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, he administered a personality test to sales representatives. Their personalities would be assessed on a 7-point scale, with 1 being the most introverted, 7 being the most extroverted and a 4 falling somewhere in between. When he tracked their performances, he found that introverts performed the worst, earning an average of $120 per hour. Extroverts performed on slightly better, performing $125 per hour.

Then who did the best? A third, little-mentioned personality type: ambiverts, who are neither extremely introverted nor extremely extroverted. They earned an average of $155 per hour, out-earning extroverts by 24 percent. Indeed, the salespeople who performed the best received an average personality score of 4.

The findings can be extrapolated to leaders as well. Ambiverts strike the right balance of talking and listening, pushing and pulling, turning the charm off and on. Most happily, the majority of people are ambiverts - meaning that most of us are natural-born leaders and sellers. And for our brethren who are either extroverts or introverts and who want to lead - simply try your best to spend more time speaking or listening.