Personality Blog

At face value the ENTJ and the INTJ are very similar. Both types have a love of complexity, both are intensely logical and both have a relentless, restless drive to change things, make them better and for closure. However the E vs I dichotomy makes such a difference and means they tend to inhabit different worlds.

The ENTJ inhabits the external world of people and situations, drawing energy from interactions and will love being loud, visible and will have (extremely strong) opinions on almost every subject.

The INTJ inhabits the internal world, detached and independent of thought and action, and they tend to keep it all inside until they are ready. Their need for privacy and independence means they will be quite reclusive, working behind the scenes to reflect, build and solve problems. The ENTJ is far more ‘out there’ loving the verbal sparring and robust debate and keen to make their point. Don’t ask the views of an ENTJ unless you are prepared for a bone-jarring honesty.

All the studies show what we kind of knew anyway that teams need a balance, ie to be most effective it should be made up of different types of people. John Katzenbach put it so eloquently when he defined a team as:

A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to an agreed purpose, goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.

But the problem often comes with the ‘complementary skills’ piece, as we tend to ‘get,’ and be more comfortable with people who are like us, yet it is our differences that make us more effective. So in a nutshell similarity creates harmony but difference gives us balance, which makes us more effective but can cause conflict. So how do we square this?

We often have people contact us trying to correct our spelling of “Extravert” pointing out that it is in fact “Extrovert.” How did this happen, why and how did the ‘a’ become an ‘o?’ Very strange!

Carl Gustav Jung first coined the terms and he was very clear:

Extraversion [sic] is characterized by interest in the external object, responsiveness, and a ready acceptance of external happenings, a desire to influence and be influenced by events, a need to join in…the capacity to endure bustle and noise of every kind, and actually find them enjoyable, constant attention to the surrounding world, the cultivation of friends and acquaintances… The psychic life of this type of person is enacted, as it were, outside himself, in the environment.

CJ Jung, Psychological Types, CW 6, pars. 1-7

Judging vs Perceiving is all about the need to plan and drive for closure vs the need stay flexible and keep options open. Judging types will want to plan the work, work the plan and drive with certainty towards known closure, whilst perceiving types will prefer to remain loose and indeed get energised by last minute pressures and things that don’t go according to plan. You remember at school there were people who prepare and plan in advance for exams whilst others crammed at the last minute, preferring the excitement of the deadline pressure; that is judging vs perceiving.