ENTJ Communication

ENTJ Communication are tough-minded, independent, decisive and brilliant individuals who are task oriented. They are objective, critical thinkers who like to consider improvements to any situation.

ENTJs like to be in charge, and will gladly take up the role to organise people and resources to achieve goals. They like to get to the action quickly to turn their goals and ideas into reality.

They are independent thinkers and do not hesitate to challenge or critique suggestions. Their purpose is not to offend, but rather through the mutual intellectual interaction improve one another.

ENTJ Communication: Communicating with them

When you are communicating with an ENTJ:

DEMONSTRATE YOUR COMPETENCE AND EXPERIENCE

ENTJs respect your knowledge of facts, your confidence and your experience. When you are communicating with them, support your decisions and information well with your grasp of facts and successful experiences.

Also, be prepared to be challenged by them. As mentioned, they believe that challenging each other’s opinions will lead to mutual growth.

However, if ENTJs sense that you do not know what you are talking about or that you lack the necessary experience, they will not give you that respect or consider you their equal, making it difficult for you to persuade them or win them over.

NO NEED FOR SMALL TALK

ENTJs are task-oriented individuals who see no need to have a small talk or casual conversations unless it is to achieve an objective. When you are interacting with them for work, do not waste their time on unfocused conversations as well, or beat around the bush.

When you are communicating with them, get down to business immediately after a quick introduction. Get straight to what you want to achieve with them; ENTJs appreciate and respect the task-oriented, straightforward approach to work.

DON’T GIVE IRRELEVANT FACTS AND DETAILS

ENTJs often focus on the long-term and the big picture. They can grasp the essence of what you’re communicating quickly and then move on to action.

This also means that they can become impatient when people become too long-winded, giving facts and details not relevant to achieving the objective. 

Get to the essence of what you’re communicating immediately, and check back with them if they understand. If they do, leave the details aside or give it to them in another form like a report or an email.

ENTJ Communication: Conflict Points

That said; let’s look at what will possibly cause conflict with an ENTJ, and how you can avoid it.

HAVING TO DEAL WITH EMOTIONAL REACTION OF OTHERS

ENTJs are task oriented individuals who do not like to get personal emotions involved in their work. They find emotions irrational and irrelevant in the completion of a task and find it hard to comprehend how people can bring it into their professional life.

When you see emotions involved in a situation with an ENTJ, you can pull the one with the emotional outburst out of the situation and seek to diffuse it before return to the situation. This includes the ENTJ, who under great stress may show an unexpected burst of emotion.

Other than that, try to keep emotions out of your conversations and keep your points logical, rational and objective when communicating with the ENTJ.

FEELING UNABLE TO CHANGE A SITUATION

ENTJs love the feeling of being in charge and having the authority to make changes and improvements as they see necessary.

When people or circumstances stop them from being able to do so, it becomes a real source of frustration for them, possibly leading to conflict.

Before this happens, you should have already heard from ENTJs about their suggestions or their opinions on a certain issue. To avoid frustration, ask them about their suggestion and if you have a differing idea, challenge theirs and allow the debate to happen.

Ultimately, the ENTJ simply wants the goal to be achieved in the best possible way.

TOO MUCH TALK, TOO LITTLE ACTION

ENTJs are action-oriented and decisive and want to get down to doing things quickly, albeit sometimes too quickly. When they see an opportunity, they believe it should be capitalised on as soon as possible.

When there is a reluctance to act by the team and a lot of perceived useless talk or discussion, ENTJs get impatient and frustrated.

If there is a real need for further discussion, considering speaking to the ENTJ about the necessity of the discussion in making a better decision about the opportunity.

ENTJ Communication: Communication Growth

If you’re an ENTJ, consider these as avenues for development:

BUILD PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS AT WORK

You take a no-nonsense approach to work, and you prefer to get straight to the point. But understand that some people like to build relationships with people at work, and they become more effective when working with people they like personally.

Occasionally, approach a colleague at work and ask them out for coffee and have a chat with them, with no agendas. Be comfortable with sharing a little of your personal life and allow others to share theirs.

You will find a good relationship goes a long way at the workplace.

LISTEN TO OTHERS BEFORE YOU MAKE A DECISION

You are decisive, but you may tend towards being too decisive, i.e. impulsive in the eyes of others. Learn to be more patient with other communication styles and seek to understand the perspective of others before you make a decision or conclusion.

Try to see the merits of other’s perspective and integrate them with your perspective. You will end up with a more wholesome solution.  Also, learn to listen emphatically to others.

SPEAK IN PRACTICAL LANGUAGE

You may prefer to speak in concepts, the abstract and the big picture, but understand that many people only understand it when you put it in practical, directly applicable, actionable ways.

When you share a vision or an idea, try to break it down for people into sequential, concrete steps to what they can do so that they will move ahead with the progressing of the idea.

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