ENTJ Personality Strengths and Weaknesses & Growth Tips

ENTJ strengths and weaknesses make the Commander who they are—strategic, charismatic, and determined, yet sometimes aloof and, ironically, somewhat moody.

Knowing this personality’s virtues and flaws can help you better understand yourself if you’re an ENTJ or build or improve a rapport with a Commander in your life.

In this article, we’ll review five prominent advantages and strengths of ENTJ personalities and four of their common weaknesses. Moreover, we’ll offer four tips and strategies for their personal growth and development to conclude the ENTJ analysis.

Let’s dive into the subject and present all the most prominent ENTJ strengths and weaknesses.

5 ENTJ Personality Type Strengths & Advantages

Starting with the ENTJ personality type strengths and advantages, we’ll explore all the Commander’s qualities that present them in a positive light.

#1. Strategic Thinking

As a judging type, the ENTJ personality values structure and order, which is reflected in their strategic thinking abilities. A Commander can plan almost everything down to the tiniest detail, often appearing to be a few steps ahead of others. Interestingly, this makes them good at chess and other strategy games.

They’re quick thinkers, highly intelligent, and socially apt, which is why they often achieve professional success, especially in politics and business. Thanks to their auxiliary cognitive function, introverted intuition (Ni), Commanders can see a bigger picture of a certain situation, easily identifying and solving problems, even with limited information.

#2. Efficiency

With extraverted thinking (Te) as their dominant cognitive function, ENTJs use their organizational skills and logic to solve problems and maximize efficiency. As a result, they typically excel in leading positions, successfully delegating tasks, managing their employees, and streamlining business processes to maximize efficiency and achieve quick results.

Another reason ENTJs are great entrepreneurs is their innovative and visionary mindset. They tend to have groundbreaking ideas, but instead of pondering them and fantasizing about what could be, Commanders take matters into their own hands and relentlessly pursue their goals.

This is why they often lead organizations down new paths, seeking to establish new rules based on rational principles and efficiency.

#3. Ambition

Commanders are highly ambitious and driven individuals, which is why their professional success is no surprise. They typically begin displaying these traits in early childhood, when their dominant Te starts developing. Their innate curiosity drives them to explore a variety of subjects, seeking explanations and not settling for vague answers.

As a result, ENTJs usually do well in school, seeking academic knowledge for their future success. This is also when their leadership abilities emerge. Namely, Commanders often seek to lead school projects and show initiative to engage in extracurricular activities.

Simply put, ENTJs start building their professional resumes and skill sets early in their lives, setting the path toward becoming the best versions of themselves.

#4. Confidence

ENTJs’ confidence is the main reason they excel in so many areas of their lives. It’s also why people tend to respect them and follow their lead. After all, the ENTJ type wasn’t nicknamed the Commander for nothing.

Thanks to their prominent intelligence, structure-oriented personality, and strong work ethic, they are confident in their abilities to resolve issues and overcome challenges.

Their strong sense of self stems from their inferior cognitive function— introverted feeling (Fi), which is responsible for introspection. While ENTJs often struggle with its development, it’s highly beneficial for them to learn to balance between Fi and their dominant Te.

#5. Charisma

While they’re not among the warmest of the 16 personalities, ENTJs are charismatic and charming, so people naturally tend to gravitate toward them. They’re typically gifted public speakers, and they enjoy having discussions and bouncing ideas off other people. One might even say that’s their favorite form of socializing.

Combined with their friendliness and outgoing nature, the Commander’s passionate attitude toward their ideas can make them the center of attention in social situations. Moreover, it can be rather inspiring, so much so that ENTJs sometimes develop somewhat of a cult following.

Lastly, they’re very much aware of their surroundings, thanks to their tertiary cognitive function, extroverted sensing (Se), which helps them stay grounded and refine their taste.

4 ENTJ Personality Type Weaknesses & Disadvantages

Moving on to the ENTJ personality type weaknesses and disadvantages, let’s isolate some points many Commanders might benefit from working on.

#1. Arrogance

A common weakness of ENTJs, arrogance, comes from their confidence and intelligence, both of which can lead to them developing somewhat of a know-it-all attitude. This is especially true of the Commanders who have progressed to leading positions in their careers, where they can let their expertise shine and have a lot of power over others.

Additionally, ENTJs often tend to dish out criticism with nonchalance, but they’re often reluctant to accept it themselves.

However, when a Commander moves out of the area where they’re at the top of their game, they can appear much more humble and welcoming of new ideas. This is due to their innate curiosity, which drives them to be quite flexible with regard to receiving new information.

#2. Limited Tolerance

Given their affinity for efficiency, ENTJs can have a limited tolerance for people whose ways of doing things differ from their own.

Since introverted thinking (Ti) has an opposing role in their cognitive function stack, Commanders often struggle to comprehend its purpose. They lead with their dominant Te, which is all about strategizing and efficiency.

On the other hand, Ti is responsible for deep analysis, something ENTJs find both time and energy-consuming. This is why they tend to consider dominant Ti users inefficient and even lazy.

Additionally, extraverted intuition (Ne), the function responsible for alternative possibilities and ideas, is only their critical parent. Thus, Commanders typically consider it distracting, so they can get frustrated with its dominant users.

#3. Emotional Unawareness

Emotional unawareness is one of the biggest ENTJ weaknesses in relationships and friendships. Their domineering attitude can lead them to fall out with coworkers and friends who prioritize collaboration over individuality.

While highly sociable and outgoing, they often find it hard to empathize with other people, despite generally coming from a good place. This isn’t surprising, given their strong preference for thinking over feeling.

Consequently, Commanders can unintentionally hurt the feelings of those they care about with their actions and decisions. As a result, their demon cognitive function, extraverted feeling (Fe), can take over, causing them to experience feelings of shame and guilt over the situation.

#4. Black and White Perspective

Even though they’re highly intellectual people capable of complex thoughts, ENTJs tend to have a black-and-white perspective of the world when they rely on their underdeveloped feeling qualities.

Commanders can make rash decisions, hasty judgments, and superficial conclusions in such situations. Since they’re generally not shallow, these behaviors count as acting out of character.

In practice, this manifests as drastic changes in opinion that range from perceiving someone or something as completely good to perceiving them as completely bad.

This inability to recognize the nuances between the two extremes can confuse and even alienate other personality types, making a normally level-headed ENTJ appear moody, capricious, and unstable.

4 Tips & Strategies for ENTJ Personal Growth & Development

Now that we’ve pinpointed ENTJ strengths and weaknesses, it’s time we examine some tips and strategies for ENTJ personal growth and development.

When they acknowledge their shortcomings, the Commander can work on magnifying their positive traits and keeping their negative ones under control to lead a more fulfilling life as a well-rounded person.

#1. Get in Touch With Your Emotional Side

As an ENTJ, you may struggle with perceiving the feelings of others and expressing your own, so you should strive to get in touch with your emotional side. While that may feel forced at first, if you give yourself some time, you’ll be able to overcome your lack of empathy and have more fulfilling personal and professional relationships.

Building stronger bonds with people around you by developing and cultivating your emotional intelligence can even help you achieve your career goals. No man is an island—we all need other people to turn to when we need support or assistance with something, and so do you.

While Commanders can deem that weakness, if they look beyond the surface, they can see just how empowering it can be to connect with those around them.

#2. Take Some Time to Unwind

If you’re a Commander, you most likely take pride in your resilience and hard-working abilities, yet you should remember to take some time to unwind and have fun every now and then. While that may seem like a waste of time and energy to an efficiency-oriented ENTJ, taking a break from work to rest and relax can be quite beneficial for you in the long run.

Not only will it improve your physical and mental health and interpersonal relationships, but it will also help increase your productivity and strengthen your drive.

Even goal-oriented, ambitious people, such as those with the ENTJ personality type, can experience burnoutif they push themselves too hard and neglect their need for recharging.

Therefore, instead of obsessing over work, take an occasional chance to stop and smell the flowers. Your mind and body will thank you for it, and you’ll stay on top of things without working yourself into overdrive.

#3. Develop Patience

It’s admirable how efficient ENTJs can be, but that doesn’t mean they don’t need to work on developing patience for those who operate differently. Not only can that make a significant difference in your relationships, friendships, and collaborations, but it can also help you not get frustrated and annoyed by other people’s flaws.

In the long run, being understanding of interpersonal differences will only add volume to your social skills and make you an even better leader and role model for those who look up to you for inspiration and guidance.

Remember that while efficiency and managerial skills are necessary for high achievers such as yourself, delegating tasks and supervising other people aren’t the only things that make for good leadership material. Your position also calls for good soft skills, and patience and understanding are certainly among them.

#4. Learn to Accept Constructive Criticism

Accepting constructive criticism doesn’t come naturally to a confident ENTJ. That’s not surprising, given that they take pride in their intellectual and innovative abilities. However, if you want to excel as the visionary you are, you need to keep in mind that innovation sometimes calls for other people’s input.

You should adopt a more collaborative attitude instead of taking their feedback and suggestions as a personal attack against your abilities. That way, you’ll get a chance to gain a new perspective on certain subjects and expand on your knowledge, which is what being inventive is all about.

Moreover, acknowledging and appreciating the contributions of others and building on their ideas rather than sticking to your own at all costs shows respect and integrity. In turn, they’ll see you as more respectable, which will ultimately strengthen your position as an authority figure.

Personalized Approach to Self-Discovery for ENTJs

While we’ve explored the most common ENTJ strengths and weaknesses, it’s noteworthy that not all Commanders are the same, despite sharing some prominent traits.

For example, although you’re an extravert, your social capacity isn’t necessarily the same as that of another ENTJ. Additionally, the balance of your judging vs. perceiving qualities can tell you more about yourself than a general analysis of your personality type. The same goes for your position on the intuition vs. sensing and feeling vs. thinking spectrums.

Therefore, a personalized approach for your personal and professional growth will go a long way.

Take the free personality test and answer a series of simple questions to find out where exactly you stand in terms of each dimension, and you’ll get an extensive analysis of your unique personality with invaluable tips for improving all important aspects of your life.

Key Takeaways

• Some of the ENTJ personality type's most prominent strengths are strategic thinking, efficiency, ambition, confidence, and charisma.
• Among the common weaknesses of the ENTJ personality type are arrogance, limited tolerance, emotional unawareness, and black-and-white perspective.
• Being a well-rounded individual capable of exercising their full potential as a Commander calls for acknowledging and accepting your ENTJ strengths and weaknesses.
• ENTJ personal growth and development strategies include getting in touch with your emotions, taking time to unwind, developing patience, and learning to accept constructive criticism.
• To make the most of your self-discovery and personal development, you can take the personality test and pinpoint your unique ENTJ strengths and weaknesses.

ENTJ Strengths and Weaknesses FAQ