Over the next month, I’ll be handing Monday blogs over to my social media manager, Amanda Benton, and her husband, Gary, who is studying to be a chaplain. The two have studied the topic of Myers Briggs extensively and Amanda often applies it to HR issues in our office! Together they hope to use their knowledge to help teams and couples understand each other. Here’s Amanda.
After some difficult experiences on the field as missionaries, Gary and I returned home feeling confused. Why was it so hard to work together? We had taken a crash-course on Myers Briggs, but it didn’t come close to helping us prepare for the stressors found in an unfamiliar culture.
After returning to the U.S., we started devouring everything we could find on Myers Briggs. And the freedom we found was amazing. Suddenly, we understood the why to our struggles. That’s when we started applying it to other arenas of life: small groups, work, friendships, our marriage. Our ability to understand people and more importantly to work with other people began to thrive.
That’s really the heart of this series. When it comes to business, we all fit somewhere.
ENTP, The Visionary: ENTPs are vision oriented in every way. Because they lead with intuition, they excel at imagining the future. The ENTPs true giftings, however, are their ability to think through strategies to implement their vision and their charisma to build a following around that vision. You will find ENTPs at the cutting edge of every field, though they always need to bring others along to handle the fine details. Famous ENTPs: Steve Wozniak, Stephen Colbert, Billy Epperhart.
ENFP, The Inspirer: ENFPs are cause oriented. They share the ENTP’s eye for possibility, but lead chiefly by bringing others in to fight for their cause(s). Contagiously idealistic, yet warm and approachable in person, the ENFP also has a knack for seeing where people might fit into their venture – where they would be most happy and effective. It’s rare to see an ENFP in a CEO’s chair, but you will find them spearheading ventures, especially in the creative fields. Famous ENFPs: Julian Assange, Walt Disney, Amanda Benton (me!).
ENTJ, The Executive: ENTJs are decisions oriented. While the ENTP and ENFP are primarily dreamer types, the ENTJ is less visionary and more realistic. They are the ones who get things done. Unlike the other Entrepreneur types, ENTJs lead with their decision-making function, and making decisions comes very naturally to them. It’s not that ENTJs are necessarily power hungry, it just makes sense for them to be in a role where they can make the hard calls and keep everybody working effectively. Before you know it, they’ll be running the company. Famous ENTJs: Margaret Thatcher, Bill Gates, Jack Welch.
ESTP, The Tycoon: ESTPs are systems oriented. For the ESTP work is work and play is play, but they’re equally excellent at both. In business, ESTPs are firm, decisive, and detail-oriented, more concerned with doing things well than they are with big ideas. Off the clock, however, ESTPs love to have fun, which for them means being around as many people as possible, and they serve the community by being the de facto social chair. The ESTP has been branded the “tycoon” for being in their element both negotiating contracts and hosting events on their yacht. Famous ESTPs: Winston Churchill, Donald Trump, Peter Schiff.
Now if you have an entrepreneurial heart, but don’t fall into one of these four categories, don’t stress! Nothing is every so black and white. We’ll cover your type over the next three weeks, and you can start to see what particular intrigue you bring to entrepreneurialism.
Take the Myers Briggs test and let me know what type you are in the comment section! If your type isn’t covered in this post, stay tuned over the next 3 weeks to learn more! Take the test here: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp
Join me every Monday for entrepreneur and business tips!
Best I can recall, I am an INFJ/INTJ. I’m a 50/50 split on feeling/thinking category.
Karen
Sounds good Karen! Are you more systems oriented or more people oriented?
Amanda,
I’m more people oriented especially one on one. I’m deliberately pursuing systems because I see it will help me serve people more effectively.
I took the test over: INFJ.
Karen,
That sounds like a really healthy thing for an INFJ to do! My husband is an INFJ (he’s currently pursuing military chaplaincy) and that one-on-one people meeting is a definite INFJ gifting!
Amanda
Amanda,
Thanks for the feedback. That’s a great field for your husband. That’s exciting! I wish you both the best!
Thank you Karen! I’m excited 🙂
I just took the test…I am an ENTJ – Extravert(1%) iNtuitive(25%) Thinking(1%) Judging(56%)
I would say that I am more neutral in extroverted vs introverted as well as thinking vs feeling. But I would also say that I am not as judging as my test results show. Can you help with my specific results?
Ryan
Ryan, I’ve never seen such close test scores before! I would love to walk this through in more detail with you. The test isn’t always conclusive in and of itself. Myers Briggs puts a really high emphasis on self evaluating. For example: Gary tests as an INTJ because of the way he was raised, but after self-evaluating realized he is most definitely an INFJ. I’ll shoot you an email so we can wrestle through this.
Thanks for asking!
Amanda and Gary.
Thank you for the great information for self-discovery…this is helping me to do some refinements and apply more prayer to continually get to a place where my God-given personality traits (ENTJ) are realized and then used to its fullest potential.
Extravert (56%) iNtuitive (62%) Thinking (1%) Judging (22%)
Nolan, thanks for the comment! Glad that we could be of some help. Sounds like you have a pretty good balance between Thinking and Feeling! When I see such a low score (1%), I would check out the other personality type. I would read up on the ENFJ too and see which type fits you better 🙂
Blessings,
Amanda
I’m eager to see what you have to say about INTJs. Hopefully it’s not bad! :/
Daniel,
Here’s the link to INTJs! Of course there’s nothing bad 🙂
https://billyepperhart.com/amanda-gary-benton-myers-briggs-in-business-the-4-managers/