My reflection blog this week is on the Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI) and its ability to develop my leadership capacity. My blog will touch on my own self-awareness and my knowledge and awareness of others. To begin my blog, I first retook the online MBTI test to determine what my output score would be. I was not surprised to see that I was clearly an ENTJ, which was the same score I received when I took this test for the first time 25 years ago.

            With the blog I needed to refresh my understanding of the ENTJ and how it outlines my preferred way of thinking or behaving. People who score with ENTG enjoy interacting with people, like to perceive new possibilities verses tangible facts. I like to make decisions using objective logic with an organized lifestyle. This also identified that I enjoy controlling life by organizing systems and people to meet tasks oriented goals, but continuous view on the future and looking for process of continuous improvement. I enjoy working with competent people who have right goals from the beginning with appropriate skills do to their job and implement the improvements I envision.

ENTJ Meaning

            The primary function of the ENTJ is “judging one of thinking”, which means that I like to make decision that are based logic using objective consideration concerned with truth, principle and justice. I am very analytical and critical, very capable of seeing the situational flaws. I prefer a task-oriented approach in dealing with people. The analysis went on to highlight my Judging thinking function is extraverted, basically a behavior to primarily govern the outer world of actions and spoken words. I organize life very logical, classifying, ordering and directing facts and situations. I am probably decisive, aiming at being fair, and comfortable with conflict if it’s a way of resolving problems. In my work setting I probably take an impersonal approach, spontaneously tending to criticize and focus more on systems and organizational needs than on each individual feelings.

When I reviewed the ENTJ personalities and behaviors about me, I felt as if I was in a leadership review where my manager was pointing out my positive and negative characteristics. Taking the analogy it states that I am very analytical and critical, which is probably the number statement I have heard over the years whether I was in the military or a civilian occupation. I have taken other tests that determined I was very analytical but not aggressive or persuasive, which to me is somewhat opposite of the MBTI test analysis. I tend to sway completely away from conflict but do engage if it will solve a problem quickly. Any example of conflict that I would undertake is if it is a process or tool issue. I have a value in my head that if I take the time to train or teach someone the correct way, the less time I will have to spend in the long term helping them one-on-one.

How I can irritate others

The main wait that my type of behavior could possible irritate others is when I take control of someone else’s role, giving directions and not providing and explanation as to why. My behavior likes to dominate the team. The interesting item I found enlightened that when I am in charge I may not take into account of other people’s feelings and drive the team too hard. I really had a hard problem with this statement as I felt this was a total opposite to the type of person I really am. I know internally in the past when power seemed to drive me I could be somewhat standoffish and did not care too much about other people’s feelings as long as the job was accomplished. I had a natural habit of rolling my eyes and had a manager bring it up to me that it set a phenomenon that people thought I didn’t care in conversations. That feedback was very traumatic to me, personally. I knew I touched my eyes allot due to wearing contacts and would always be moving them around due to my eyes being dry. It was also a very nervous twitch, especially in meetings that were long and have the tendency to have a higher caliber of touch discussions. I am one of those people who can sit in a meeting and can hear the entire meeting, but then my brain has drifted off about other topics, and would remember it all. Weird part is since I was a little kid I could plan my entire day from meeting conversations, to what I was going to wear, tasks that had to be done that day, and analyze the previous day, all while I was sleeping. It was like my analytical brain never shuts off, which is definitely a weird phenomenon but I have learned to manage it over the years so I can get quality sleep. I do a similar type of analyzation when I am meetings and when I reel myself back in, I actually find myself rolling my eyes.  It’s a very weird behavior but I have and continuously learn ways to manage.

            Another behavior trend that may cause me to be irritating to others is my ability to decide too quickly without consulting with other people, and possibly not taking into account of current realities. The outcome of this would be creating too much change and not leaving workable routines alone. This may be true however in my work environment where the change is turbulent at times, the style of behavior actually works. I feel it works for me because I am considered a subject matter expert in the technical skill that I manage. I think this behavior would be troubling if you didn’t know anything about the work that is being managed. You would need to be extremely careful, as you can lose the trust and confidence of the team that you are leading.

ENTJ’ Personal growth

The overall development of this personality type takes place in various phases throughout a person’s life. As a young person, the main objective is focused on developing the preferred mental functionality. However, as the person gets older and matures there is a need to develop greater comfort with non-preferences. This change will allow an ENTJ to increase performance at work including the ability to deal with different people and circumstances. When I read about the ENTJ’s personal growth in the early stages of life, I had to reflect back as a child in elementary and secondary school.

School no matter what level has never really been hard for me except for those courses like history, humanities, or anything that had a true reference to historical learning concept. I was a dreamer and would often find myself reading and never knowing what I read as I was just reading words. I knew from a very small age that I was a dreamer but very analytical. I remember math subjects were the easiest as they had a systematic approach with rules, and if you just continued to practice that standard rules there intended outcome would be the final result. As I got older, I had to open that sphere of control and try new topics, not because I wanted to, but it did increase that comfortability and exposure to other people and things.

ENTJ Midlife Growth development

As an ENTJ in the midlife growth development is the phase where I learned I can achieve growth by developing functions that are not fully developed by pausing and thinking, taking time to consider my own values and emotions, and ensuring to consider the impact of your approach on other people's values and feelings. I also learned that I could learn that other people are more likely to accept my decisions if I were to consult them more and demonstrating their contributions are accepted and used in a collective decision, allowing me to have ownership of the solution amongst the team. I am more likely to be very tolerant of people’s limitations, provide appreciation or what people are doing good verses bad.  Being in my early 40’s, this is definitely the reality of where I am in my life today. Just last week my co-worker and I were discussing some statics of a project and there were not all that great and he asks me what I thought. I gave him the standard metric analysis response, but provided an explanation from a positive standpoint that although the numbers are not favorable, the team has made minor improvements in various elements of the metrics. His made a statement to me saying the glass is always half full with you. Of course I told him that I just cannot tell people that they suck, as they need to know they are doing something right. At my midlife point of growth, I am very considerate in my approach in my actions, especially when it could impact someone’s feelings. I have always believed in helping others to learn something will always remain in that person’s perception of you as an individual.

Another example of perception of you that remains with people for ever is when a control account manager called me from Texas about a month ago and thanked me. Of course I was thank you and why do I deserve a thank you. A couple years about all control account manager when through very extensive training for their jobs, and every three years you have to take an online refresher test. The first time this person tool they test they could not pass it, and it was very stressful. So one day he asked for help, and we stayed after work and I walked through the course material to show him how the test aligned with the corporate directive. The questions directly ask the tester to go to a specific page and answer the question by finding the answer. He had no idea, and thought he was to take the test cold with no resources. This year when the refresher came around, he remembered what I had told him and passed it first time around. He called to personally thank me for teaching him verses giving him the answers. To me that made my day more importantly, I learned that someone’s personal feeling and value to the team is very important to not only their success, but yours as well. When it comes to the midlife analysis of an ENTJ, I am definitely in my prime and

ENTJ Stress

I learned that my personality type effects the overall way I react to stress. When there is little or no stress at all, I find it very easy to use the most appropriate behavior for the situation. Most common is to use behaviors I have learned I training courses. However if the stress increases I tend to lean on my natural style verses learned behavior. As an example in a crises mode, I may take control, decide what needs to be done and give direction to those who need to do something. I found this as a very true statement on my ability to deal with high degree of stress in the workplace. Stress in my environment is variable, and when things are in crisis mode I do immediately take over, give directions, but I also give helping hand. I even take the most challenging element of the crisis. The hardest part of being an ENTJ is letting other do something in crisis mode, when I know I can do it efficiently faster.

 

When an ENTJ is under mild level of stress, they maintain sense of direction and drive others hard to overcome short term difficulties. However, there are times an ENTJ may make decisions too quickly and without considering the impact on people who are also under stress. I may criticize their efforts and ignore their feelings. I thought this was interesting since I learned in midlife I would be very good at taking consideration of feelings of others, but if a certain levels of stress I can completely through this concept out the window.  I can see how I can do that, depending on the situation type. When at work I have a less tendency to do this, however when I am at home my role is different and when raising four daughters I tend to have a lesser need to protect the emotions and feelings of the daughters when I am giving direction. However, I have learned even as a parent that stopping to listen to them as young adults they are today, and waiting to give an articulated response tends to have better reaction return of investment. I tend to be entirely harder on the daughters than my husband is, and contribute that to being a woman. I have always demonstrated accountability as a person, therefore I expect our daughters to not lean on superficial crutches such as being a woman as a limitation to their ability to be successful as adults. I have not done this test on the daughters, but I can estimate three of the four would have a very similar behavior trait as I have, just based on their mannerisms. When our daughter Madison was in junior high, she had to give a PowerPoint presentation. The teachers review remarks identified that she was organized, prepared, structured and analytical, including talking with her hands. Madison did not know what that meant from an analysis perspective and I just let her know she is her mother’s daughter, which is a very good characteristics in life. It truly made for a great laugh for sure, as in any teen you get the typical eye roll and no one really wants to be like their parents.

When under extreme stress, fatigue or illness the typical ENTJ shadow may appear which the negative form of the ISFP behavior.  The characteristic of this behavior is the ability to withdraw and the need to be along, intense emotions that may or may not be expressed, sensitive to criticism, act impulsively and doing things excessively.  Although this behavior is visible to others, it is shadowed with the ENTJ as they tend to like to find fault in others without recognizing in within themselves. This is also a very true reflection of my life when I am in extreme stress, key is to prevent those environment settings to occur, and my husband says I intentionally avoid stress to keep from having to deal with drama, which is spot on. I don’t have many environments like this by I had one a couple weeks ago and we deemed it as a personal meltdown. A few days prior to thanksgiving, I had bariatric weight loss surgery to reverse an auto immune disease and pre-diabetes. This was a very intense surgery and one of the major side effects is depression to keep the stress to a mild level.  So about five days after surgery, my husband and daughter thought they needed to have a debate on her life and thought they should bring me into the conversation. The conversation was not negative at all, but they brought in behavior and how it is a true indication of where you are going in the future. Of course, I get into the mom mode of defense of the daughter, because that is what we do as parents, and just let everyone know what I thought about their own behaviors, flaws and what I think everyone should do better. First everyone stops and looks at me like did mom just have an out of body experience, do we need to take her back to the hospital, and why is she crying. Yep, this person never cries and it was the shocker to the family. But the analysis is for the first time I think the family found the high extreme stress level impact of what can happen with an ENTJ if they are pushed or off balanced for some reason. I found this section interesting cause I was trying to find something in my past that I could relate to of extreme stress, but this example was so spot on. So the crying only lasted a day and I had my bubbly self-back to normal, I did learn something about my own capability and keeping myself away from high stress moments is probably in my own best interest and those around me. I have also been a person if I was fatigued and stresses, I go to sleep. It was always my mode of operation that worked best for me.

Careers

As an ENTJ, the type of careers that I enjoy usually involves talking challenging and complex problems, process improvements, organizing and directing the way things should be done. I like to implement new strategies that improve quality, develop great skills or competence and enable an organization to grow and develop. The career sections was the favorite to understand as it too is so how I like to work. As a project engineer/scheduler I work with over 20 control account manages each week to design a project and then work with them to manage it. I love interacting with people which is my extraversion side of my behavior. I like dealing with potential possibilities and example as a scheduler to identifying with problems with suggested solutions. I do like making decisions using objective logic, as I like to really think things through for resolution. I do like a well-defined and structured workstyle. The most popular careers for an ENTJ is project management, management, human resources, technical specialist, engineering and administration.

When I read about the type of jobs that are best suited for an ENTJ, I immediate related to project management and technical specialists as I have worked in those specific career focused areas. From a technical perspective I excel as own the work where people rely on my skills. I have been in the project management environment for the last ten years, in which to me encompasses various technical skillsets and feeds that need to have challenged work, thinking, and applying the behavior skills of listening and working with others.

Conclusion

            I enjoyed this week’s reflection blog and completing the Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI) again to gain a refreshers on my personality behaviors. The most unique part was discussing it with my husband and realizing we are bipolar opposites on analysis, which is probably why we work very well together as I don’t think there could be two of us exactly alike. The review was no surprise to me at all and again felt like I was in a counseling session learning about myself. The one value added is reading about the other various MBTI results and how the apply, especially as a leader. I think it’s very important to understand who is on your team and how they operate. At Lockheed we actually have this banner that was created a couple years back where the team took a MBTI test and everyone’s name is in one of the squared grid MBTI chart. The interesting fact is that a good majority of those on the team are either ENTJ or INTJ, and I don’t find that odd since it’s an engineering type of environment. The amazing thing is that I am at a company that benefits from the type of behaviors that I have and I also benefit from having those traits.

Reference

Team Technology. (2015). ENTJ Personality Types In-Depth. Retrieved from Team Technology: http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/personality/types/entj/overview/