I disagree rather strongly with that. Being an introvert isn't about confidence at all. I'm about as introverted as can be, and have also been called "justifiably arrogant" on many occasions.
Introversion isn't about being shy or socially unskilled. It's about where your focus lies, and from whence you draw strength. If you have a high level of focus, get bored or annoyed easily by chaotic social settings, and engage in a lot of self-analysis, you're probably an introvert. If, on the other hand, you need breaks at the watercooler every twenty minutes, can't stand to be alone for long periods of time, and spend all your mental energy memorizing trivia that is useful in small-talk and figuring out what social activity to pursue next, you're probably an extrovert.
From an outsider's perspective, a simple way to identify a person as either introvert or extrovert is to examine how they carry on conversations. For example, while both an introvert and an extrovert might seek out conversation about computer performance, an introvert is more likely to discuss principles of system performance like operating system architecture, symmetric multi-processing, and the role of lossless compression algorithms in protocols, while an extrovert is more likely to to discuss details of system performance like processor benchmarks, hard drive seek times, and data channel throughput.
Introverts tend to make better inventors and implementors, while extroverts tend to make better directors and salesmen. The current structure of the business world doesn't take note of that, and overlooks the value of introverts to a fair degree. For instance, the usual career advancement path for an IT professional starts in technical fields that are crossover points for introverts and extroverts, such as support technicians, progresses through innovative activities that are introversion-specific like program design and code development, and ends with the brass ring of management and executive accounts support, which is all extrovert-oriented. The structure of the common advancement path in IT is broken, because it doesn't create paths of advancement that capitalize on the strengths of the careerists' tendencies toward introversion or extroversion, and instead tries to make everyone fit a mold. A lot of extroverts falter in that intermediary stage, and make a lateral move to some sort of administrative job within a company where they can then continue to progress to upper management and, ultimately, end up in charge of the introverts, while introverts just get channelled into middle-tier technical jobs and are never given the opportunity to advance from there, since the upper-tier technical jobs are all filled from middle-tier management.
Treating introverts as broken or deficient is a good way to earn their resentment. If you want to maximize the effectiveness of the people who work for and with you, you need to learn to value their strengths and what they can offer, rather than classifying people as "socially skilled" and "not socially skilled". The common perception that introverts are just socially unskilled people by definition is entirely wrong: the fact of the matter is that introverts only [b]tend to be[/b] socially unskilled, usually because they're not interested on a personal level in engaging in the sort of social activities that make extroverts happy. The only impetus a real introvert has to learn social skills is to succeed in an extrovert's world, which is a frustrating and often miserable task for an introvert.
As famous introvert Jean-Paul Sartre once said: "Hell is other people." This isn't an attitude born of being a "socially bruised extrovert": it's an attitude that arises because introverts often have to deal with extroverts and, to put it unkindly, get sick and friggin' tired of all that empty prattling. I mean, seriously, what's the point of all that nattering on about stupid crap that seems to dominate the conversations of extroverts?
Intellectually I understand that the "small talk" of which extroverts seem so proud is a sort of communication protocol, wherein they establish channels of data exchange and note points of intersecting expertise, but the signal-to-noise ratio of such a conversation from the point of view of an introvert is absurdly high. Get two extroverts together to discuss the architecture of an enterprise LAN that has to be put together, and it will be peppered with personal anecdotes about an upcoming Labor Day barbeque, sports scores, hirings and firings gossip, and so on. Get two introverts together to discuss the same thing, and it will be peppered with opinions on cabling (twisted pair or solid core), comparative strengths of failover server redundancy models, and possibly some consideration of how to best to represent the finished plan to the extroverts with whom they have to work.
If you've got a two-person job, all else being equal, get two introverts to do it: they'll get it done faster, with more attention to detail. If you've got a thirty-person job with two people planning it, at least one of them should be an extrovert, because someone's going to have to explain it to all those other extroverts.
If I was inclined toward offense, I'd be offended by your statements that introverts lack confidence and are "just socially bruised extroverts." Instead, however, I simply feel a bit of pity for someone with such a clear lack of understanding of what makes people tick.
