A goal with no plan is a delusion
- Overhaul from My Hero Academia
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A goal with no plan is a delusion
- Overhaul from My Hero Academia
ENTJs seem to be renowned for their leadership abilities in business, law, military and just about everywhere. I feel like this is the one thing I see nonstop in the MBTI world but I was wondering in your opinion if they have any leadership weaknesses and what those are? You have been in leadership positions and I feel like it's better to ask you than reading the same thing on those sites.
[2/2] I am growing into somewhat of a leader myself and I feel like strengths are obvious but the cons not so much. Also an ENTJ if that helps. Thanks!
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This is a great question.
Our greatest weakness as leaders is that we struggle to value what we can’t measure.
I’ll explain. Story time.
I have a guy on my team we’ll call Adam and he’s an absolute superstar. He’s a former United States Army Intelligence Infantry Officer, a Bronze Star Medal recipient for leading over 300 combat missions in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and a former strategy Senior Manager for the artificial intelligence division of a top management consulting firm. Adam can do 20 projects a year when the team average is about 15. As a leader, Adam’s contributions are easy to reward because I can quantify that he completes 1.5 times the amount of projects as everyone else and he’s a high performer. Adam’s contributions are easy to measure and his value is clear.
Now, I have another guy on my team we’ll call Tony. Tony completes about 13-15 projects per year, sometimes less than that, which puts him at the team average in most years and slightly below the average in other years. He is paid almost the same salary as Adam despite his lower output. To the untrained eye, Tony could be a considered an average to low performer on the team and this is a conclusion that many younger leaders can rush to make. Why would we pay Adam and Tony almost the same salary when Adam completes 1.5x more projects than Tony? The reason is that Tony contributes to the team in other extremely valuable ways such as:
He supports struggling team members and often times helps them with their projects at the expense of his own
He coaches junior team members in SQL so our team can have a deep bench of skilled data analysts to greatly improve the quality of our work
He invests a lot of personal time building relationships with our business stakeholders so all our projects run more smoothly
He mediates and resolves conflicts between people that simply don’t get along with each other so they can succeed
He coordinates every team building event/happy hour so that team members stay engaged and feel appreciated for their contributions
Tony’s contributions are difficult to measure and his value can be unclear. If I go by number of projects completed, then Adam is clearly more “valuable” than Tony, but if I look beneath the surface and scrutinize Tony’s intangible contributions-- I know that our team would be absolutely screwed without him. Our projects may fail without him shifting his priorities to help cover gaps on our team, our work may be lower quality because our team members aren’t as skilled in data analysis, our stakeholders may dislike us and refuse to cooperate because we don’t have strong relationships with them, Adam may not have someone to vent to when he’s pissed at another colleague (thus negatively impacting Adam’s stellar performance), and we may have greater unhappiness and attrition in the team leading to an overall decline in morale, image, and performance.
Adam’s value is crystal clear to us but it’s seeing Tony’s value that we can struggle to grasp as xxTJ leaders. This weakness is applicable to all the xxTJs (ENTJ, ESTJ, INTJ, ISTJ) but especially to Te-doms because our dominant function wants to establish objective standards of measurement and success. We’re uncomfortable approaching the land of subjectivity because it can lead to accusations of bias and errors in decision making. We’re excellent at measuring and valuing objective variables/contributions but we’re weak at measuring and valuing subjective ones. This is our Achilles heel and this what you need to actively work on as you grow as a leader.
To become an effective leader, look beyond pure productivity, output and skill. There’s a reason why sports teams have different positions in them-- not everyone can be the top scorer, but everyone can certainly contribute something necessary and critical to help win. Diversify your teams with people who bring unique strengths and learn to value qualities, traits, and contributions that may be difficult to measure but are important all the same.
ESTJ: Nog, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”
ESTJ – the Director, the Achiever, the Optimizer
DS9 pulled off a neat trick by letting its lead kid character opt out of the expected Starfleet path, making way for his dysfunctional little friend to don the uniform instead. While the free-spirited Jake and the (eventually) over-achieving Nog wouldn’t seem to be a match in any other universe, on DS9 they found friendship in spite of themselves. In the MBTI universe, they both share the same cognitive functions, just in a slightly flipped order, so they’re really not that different after all.
Dominant Function: (Te) Extraverted Thinking, “The Workshop”
Nog is clearly the leader of the pair in his and Jake’s youthful escapades. He drags the other boy through many pranks, games, and schemes, always managing to convince the more laid-back Jake that it’ll be worth it. They even start a business together that ends up turning a tidy profit.
Nog wants to succeed, first as a Ferengi, and then as a Starfleet officer. When his father forbids him from attending school, he sneaks in reading lessons with Jake. When he decides it’s time to apply for Starfleet, he goes straight to Captain Sisko for a recommendation. He overcomes Sisko’s and everyone else’s doubts about his fitness for the job by excelling so hard at his tasks they have no choice but to support him.
ENTJ: Kasidy Yates, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”
ENTJ – the Commander, the Field-Marshall, the Trailblazer
With the introduction of Kasidy Yates, yet another Extraverted Judger type entered Ben Sisko’s Fi-dom life, challenging his comfort zone. Kasidy and Ben are my favorite couple in all of Star Trek, and it’s frankly impressive and encouraging that these two disparate personality types make such a great pair. They confound each other at every turn, and yet every scene they play together strikes sparks. They seem to enjoy the mystery that is the person they love.
Dominant Function: (Te) Extraverted Thinking, “The Workshop”
Kasidy is captain of her own ship, the Xhosa, which she runs under the company she founded—Kasidy Yates Interstellar Freights, the rhymingest name for a business in all of Star Trek. Since humans live without money in this future, one must assume she’s doing the job for the joy of the work, or that she turns a profit on the side for use outside the Federation’s moneyless economy. Either way, she gets up at 5am every day, and often works till 1am.
She lives by her father’s motto: “If you’re going to do something, do it right.” This even applies to jobs she’s not that interested in, but feels a duty to complete, like her work as convoy liaison officer for one of the Defiant’s escort missions. She gets the job due to her work record and her high standing among the other freighter captains.
Kasidy is willing to take charge in critical situations. She smuggles supplies to the impoverished Maquis, and when she’s caught, she takes responsibility and lets her crew go, facing the consequences on her own. When Ben gets too worked up over the Niners’ baseball game, she pulls the team together and gets them into fighting shape.
ESTJ: The Founder, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”
ESTJ – the Director, the Achiever, the Optimizer
When we type a villain, we usually expect their inferior function to be their fatal weakness. For Te-doms, the stereotype is that they have no moral oversight to their actions. By contrast, the intimidating Founder has a very clear moral vision--she believes she is absolutely entitled to wield control over other, lesser species.
Another of DS9’s ESTJ villains, the meddling Brunt, acts the same way. He enforces the laws of Ferengi society with an aggressive sense of justice. Just like a weak inferior-Te user might use faulty logic to defend their subjective beliefs, inferior-Fi can provide the comfort of self-righteousness to an over-controlling ExTJ.
(This character was never given a name on the show. Instead, she was referred to in dialogue and in the credits as simply, “Female Changeling.” That’s super clunky and annoying to type over and over, so for simplicity’s sake, I’m just calling her “The Founder.”)
Dominant Function: (Te) Extraverted Thinking, “The Workshop”
The Founder’s major directive is to bring every civilization she meets under the control of the Dominion. She sees it as her calling to bring order to a galaxy racked with chaos. Solids, she believes, don’t know enough to govern themselves, and so the Founders must lead.
The Founders exert control over their realm through their minions, the loyal Vorta and Jem’Hadar. Both races are genetically engineered to be obedient without question, and to view the Founders as gods. For further control, the Jem’Hadar are engineered to be addicted to a drug called Ketracel-white, which only their “gods” provide.
ENTJ: Ishka, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”
ENTJ – the Commander, the Field-Marshall, the Trailblazer
Successful businesspeople nearly always get typed as ENTJs. So how about a successful businessperson who’s also a crusading societal reformer? And a big-eared, really old lady who’s one of the best moms in the Star Trek universe (or any universe)?
Dominant Function: (Te) Extraverted Thinking, “The Workshop”
Ishka wants to acquire profit like any Ferengi, but she’s forbidden as a female by law. So she does it anyway. She’s better at it than her husband and sons, and eventually, better at it than the Grand Nagus.
She’s straightforward and no-nonsense, and speaks her mind, especially to her squabbling, meddling sons. This gets her in trouble, as she’s not allowed in Ferengi society to speak unless spoken to, or even to leave the house. But she does it anyway.
Ishka likes to offer profitable advice to anyone who will listen. She helped her husband, who was not the Ferengi ideal of a businessman, stay financially afloat. She began her relationship with Zek by offering him tips at a Tongo tournament (after she won the female division), and then secretly assisted him in running then Alliance when his mental state deteriorated. Even when she’s being held prisoner by the Dominion, she instructs her Vorta captive on how to invest wisely.
ENTJ: Zek, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”
ENTJ – the Commander, the Field-Marshall, the Trailblazer
Zek almost starts out as a villain, a caricature of big business and greed run amuck. Eventually, he develops a bent toward social justice (which kind of makes him even more of a villain from Quark’s perspective). This new conscience isn’t simply the development of his Feeling function, though. As long as he’s convinced that the emancipation of women and the establishment of social welfare and environmental protections increase the prosperity of the Ferengi people, then in Zek’s judgment, it’s the smart—and profitable—thing to do.
Dominant Function: (Te) Extraverted Thinking, “The Workshop”
Grand Nagus Zek stands at the top of the Ferengi food chain. No one matches his business acumen, and much of his job is to set an aspirational standard of greed and success to live by. Zek doesn’t see a difference between business and pleasure, and in fact the first time he announces his retirement (which turns out to be a dodge), it’s after 85 years of never taking a vacation.
Zek always works to make the best deal for himself. Nothing comes without a measurable cost. Kira and Sisko are able to convince him to make a charitable donation to Bajor in return for Bajor’s good favor in the future, but when he acquires a lost Bajoran orb, Zek intends to make the Bajoran people pay through the nose to get it back.
By law, he should have Ishka thrown in prison for daring to make profit as a female, but she’s so good at it that Zek must admit to her worthiness as a Ferengi.
Things to whisper into a high Te user’s ear
Excel spreadsheets