ENFJ Leadership

ENFJs are passionate, articulate and charismatic leaders who can rally people around a common cause. They are task-focused and decisive visionaries who desire to see the world become a better place. They are comfortable with the limelight and often shine through with their great communication skills and natural charisma.

ENFJ Leadership: Leading Self

ENFJs are idealistic and perfectionist. They have an ideal they envision, and they will strive to achieve them.

They are organised in their personal life, keeping schedules and deadlines well and staying disciplined to plans they have set for themselves.

However, ENFJs do have a tendency to be involved in too many projects because of their many inspirations. Combined with their need to please and their obligation to finish what they’ve started, ENFJs may end up being over-committed to too many projects. They may start missing details when they’re in such a situation.

ENFJ Leadership: Setting the Vision

Their natural idealism makes them natural vision setters. They are passionate people and will share a vision that is humanistic and meaningful. Combined with their excellent communication skills, they can inspire many to follow them in the pursuit of the cause.

However, for values and beliefs that they are deeply passionate about, ENFJs can appear stubborn because of their refusal to budge. When a vision that connects with the ENFJs beliefs and values are being challenged, they will shut down any alternative points of views or challenges, even though these alternatives may be legitimate.

ENFJ Leadership: Connecting with Others

ENFJs are encouraging, warm appreciative and supportive; seeking out the good in others to praise. In the workplace, ENFJs will create an atmosphere of sincerity and passion for their team with their personality.

Their desire for personal development also means that they will seek opportunities to help their staff develop.

However, their natural desire to please may cause them only to ignore the negative in others. They may find it hard to criticise, even when the criticism is necessary or leads to personal growth and development. Likewise, they find it hard to accept criticism, often taking impersonal comments about their work too personally.

ENFJ Leadership: Accomplishing your Goals

ENFJs are task-focused and strategic in their execution of tasks. They will look at a project and instinctively know how to approach it.

They are also keenly aware of how much responsibility to give each person such that there is a growth stretch, but at the same time not too much that a person is overworked. In this sense, they’re very adept at managing the resources that are given to them.

ENFJs however, may compromise performance for the sake of personal relationships. When a team member does not do their job up to par, the ENFJ may refrain from reprimanding even though it may be necessary, instead of turning a blind eye to it. The team may end up with a less-than-optimal product if such is the case.

ENFJ Leadership: Developing your Leadership

Here are some tips for development:

DELAY DECISION MAKING

You may be too impatient to wait for a decision, so much so that you may prematurely end debate or a discussion. Consider that better options may arise if you allow people to sit on the idea and think about it separately for a day or two; therefore resist the temptation to conclude too quickly. 

LEARN TO BE COMFORTABLE WITH CONFLICT

You may tend to shut down more heated discussions in the name of mutual harmony and cooperation, but understand that differing views of a particular issue can often lead to a better, more dynamic solution to an existing problem. A conflict only becomes destructive when people start using personal attacks; till then, leave it open for debate.

LOOK AT THE BOTTOM LINE

Because you are empowering and encouraging by nature, you tend to take a positive, learning point of view toward the work of others. If a work is not up to standard, you tend to start coaching the person instead of just outrightly stating that the person did not meet your standards. Learn to balance your desire to teach and develop with clear expectations on others’ behaviour and performance. 

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