ENTJs are the commander or executive officers of the MBTI 16 personality types. They are natural leaders and strategists. Just like a commander in the military, they are good at assessing any situation from a rational point of view, being thorough in their planning to achieve their goals, and managing others.
Efficiency and effectiveness are two of the most important concepts to them. They also can perceive someone’s potential and know when to delegate. Moreover, their extroverted nature allows them to engage with people easily and gives them the ability to motivate and persuade others to do their best.
This leadership tendency also comes with its handicaps. To ENTJs, effectiveness can quickly become an obsession leading them to become intolerant and rigid.
The nickname “Commanders” fits the ENTJ like a glove. They are natural-born leaders with an analytical mind and a goal-driven personality combined with the right dose of people skills and self-awareness. Although they are ambitious, their ego is fed by achieving goals, and if they can do it while maintaining good personal relationships the better. They have no qualms about delegating tasks if they find that others are better suited for getting the job done most efficiently and effectively.
In fact, one of the reasons that ENTJs are such good leaders stems from their ability to perceive other people’s potential and to explore it and enhance it.
Commanders have a strong presence and can be seen as harsh in certain situations because they are so focused on results. They like interacting with people and prefer to work for a common goal but, if not possible, they have no second thoughts about compromising social relationships to achieve their target.
Despite all that, ENTJs are not despotic rulers. They respect anyone that stands up to them as long as they can present logical, reasonable, and persuasive arguments.
ENTJs are intuitive thinkers who use their reasoning skills to quickly scan any situation or context in the search for inefficiencies that they can work on to improve.
They also do not use their decision skills blindly. Commanders are good at making decisions and picking the right choice because their intuition helps them perceive the underlying meaning and consequences of certain data and information. They then use this information to extrapolate potential outcomes, including problems and benefits that might arise from a certain approach.
Commanders do not limit themselves to simply identifying problems and inefficiencies. Their leadership-driven nature combined with their outspoken personality also makes them more prone to actively try to install any changes they find more reasonable and efficient.
To do so, they not only present fact-based and logical arguments but also use their extroverted side to convince and persuade others to take action.
Commanders are good with words, be it spoken or written. They find it easy to convey their thoughts and opinions and they do it in a clear, straightforward, and logical manner. Moreover, the fact that they enjoy interacting with others provides them with important insights that allow them to adapt their discourse when needed.
These two traits combined are an expression of the efficiency-seeking nature of Commanders. It gives them the ability to convey any information very clearly and persuasively regardless of their audience.
Leadership is not all about making decisions, albeit Commanders tend to be very good at it. It is also about managing information, data, tasks, and, most importantly, people to achieve the desired results.
They understand that different people have different skills and knowledge and a diverse group can generate better and more productive outcomes than one individual working alone. Not only that, but Commanders tend to be very good at perceiving the underlying potential of others and choosing which tasks to delegate to whom.
ENTJs enjoy being surrounded by other people. As extraverts, they draw energy from social interactions.
This predisposition to establish relationships with others combined with their leadership and communication skills plus their ability to pick up other people’s potential makes ENTJs very charismatic.
People enjoy being around and interacting with them. Commanders tend to be good at making others feel needed. They make other people want to help them because only together can they achieve what the Commander, such a charismatic leader, cannot achieve alone.
When Commanders delegate a task they expect nothing less than perfection from the others. They might accept one mistake or another, but they are intolerant in face of repeated mistakes.
Their analytical posture and efficiency-seeking nature take precedence over feelings and emotions. When they plan a strategy they already take into account potential problems and if an unforeseen situation appears due to an individual’s error, they can become very harsh. This, in turn, can create an environment of fear that affects the overall performance of the team.
Generally speaking, Commanders are not tyrannical leaders because they understand the value of exchanging ideas as long as these are based on a rational premise and clearly presented.
Nevertheless, this personality type is also very susceptible to crossing to the “dark side”.
High-quality results can lead them to a sense of self-aggrandizement. They can quickly shift their perception from the whole to the individual. In other words, people with this personality type can easily stop giving other people credit and collect it all for themselves. They tend to think that they achieved their targets solely because of their planning and their ability to delegate tasks to the right people and downplay the active role of others in the process.
As a result, this sense of personal power might work as an agent of alienation. ENTJs might start to drift away from other people as they feel superior to them all the while their persuasive influence fades away because others do not feel recognized and thus lose the desire to help.
People with this MBTI personality type give precedence to reason over emotions at all times. When the two clash, they have no qualms about dismissing and disregarding any feelings. Efficiency is all that matters.
Since they have a natural ability to detect mistakes and inefficiencies, this can lead to uncomfortable situations with other people. Whatever they have to say, they say it to the person’s face bluntly.
ENTJs believe that everyone has to work as much or more than them. However, they analyze other people's performances based on their own working approach.
They might struggle to understand that other personality types are not necessarily lazier or more prone to procrastination - they simply approach work from a different perspective. For example, people with an INTP personality are also very analytical and goal-driven, but they do not enjoy schedules. For them, it is more important to present high-quality work than to rush it to meet a deadline.
For ENTJs, anyone who fails to fulfill a plan is lacking work commitment, even if the reality is different.