Compilation

ENFJ Personality Type

Personality Types

When one seeks to understand an individual, they seek to know who these people are. This includes understanding their preferences, their characters, how they make decision, their perceptions of life and other people’s choices amongst many others. It is from a combination of all these things that one identifies their own personality or that of others. Qualities that make up the character of an individual are their personality while personality types are a combination of personalities that define human beings.

ENFJ Personality Type

After going through the questions and giving responses I deemed appropriate on different aspects of my life and pertaining to how I view things such as decisions, company, comfort zones and personal space preferences, I ended up with the ENFJ personality type with 3%, 69%, 6% and 41% respectively on each of the letters above. In full these words represent; Extravert, Intuitive, Feeling and Judging. According to these percentages, I do not show any preference for extraversion over introversion. This simply means that I may at same occasions in different times exhibit characteristics of an introvert or an extravert.

Also, I depend more on intuition than I do depend on sensing. This makes me more acceptance of ideas and imaginations than I am of facts and anything concrete. From words said, for instance, I would gather more from what the other person chose not say. This makes me prone to make decisions based on abstract ideas more compared to presented facts. As far as feelings are concerned, I tend to slightly prefer feeling over thinking. I think this is what I fail to understand as being an imaginative and full of ideas I should naturally be a thinker, which I believe I am and hence not fully sold to the result. Finally, given to choose between judging and perceiving I moderately would prefer judging (Myers & Myers, 2010).

ENFJ Personality in Leadership

ENFJ persons such as me tend to take the passionate form of leadership. This entails showing empathy and high levels of care for the members of their times. I have found myself wondering why one team member was unable to meet targets set for them and these thoughts wandered to whether they were having personal problems that in turn affected their performance. I love order and having everyone with a common understanding and this has since turned me into quite a teacher with my team mates. In fact, whenever we are training it is quite common to see most of them ask me questions to just ensure they are at per with the rest of the team or other teammates. Also, as much as having an ENFJ personality automatically makes me future oriented, resulting to my making decisions that translate to the best future, I tend to look back a lot especially at my past and that of my team mates just so to get an understanding on where we are coming from and how that journey could prove effective for the current stretch of roles and duties facing us (Myers, 2016).

As with every positive aspect of a trait there is a negative aspect too, there are possible hitches that come with being an ENFJ personality leader. Being overly sensitive to the well-being of others makes most of ENFJs avoid conflicts and as such end up shelving matters that need immediate solving to avoid conflicts. While this creates peace in the short run, it is a ticking bomb in the long run as unresolved issues lead to bigger problems. Severally, I have found myself postponing resolving issues so as to maintain a status quo and this often proved detrimental as it brought more problems in the long run. Seeking to not hurt people and preventing conflict may be a good virtue but when this jeopardizes team objectives and effective leadership it should not be encouraged. This is something am still working on.

ENFJ in HealthCare Leadership

Considering the sensitivity involved and needed in the healthcare profession, who is best to take leadership roles in this sector other than the passionate ENFJ leader? With our passion and empathy towards colleagues and other humans in this case patients, we offer better support that comes from understanding individuals prior to labeling them with their job roles and medical situations/conditions. Considering the involving task of most health care professionals, ENFJ leadership enhances effective leadership in this sector.

For effective leadership in healthcare, emotional intelligence, quick decision making, powerful communication, technical management and relationship development are seen as the most important skills (Wikström & Dellve, 2009). As far as emotional intelligence, relationship development and communication, an ENFJ leader, would highly be effective as a leader in healthcare. Seeking to understand other individuals comes with openness and readiness to communicate making this a strong point as well as relationship development. When one is empathetic to the needs and even pasts of their teammates, a relationship is developed and the team then tends to work from a relationship greater than a mere work relationship (Aranda, 2013).

However, as much as the two skills above can enhance emotional intelligence, they may also be detrimental to the same. This is likely when there is inability to differentiate personal relationships that result from the above, from a healthy work relationship between the leader and the led in a healthcare environment. Also, while empathy is essential to understanding work mates and clients, it may impair tough decision making so as to avoid hurting others and conflict. This is quite clear from the number of times I was unable to make decisions that would end up hurting a team member and ended up not meeting targets for that quarter. Hence, making this part of ENFJ personality ineffective to leadership in healthcare.

Eventually in team-review meeting, I was able to point this out and even made it clear that such indecision cost the team and would not be repeated. The good thing is that the entire team seemingly learnt from that scenario and no one was placed in such a position to make awkward decisions hence. It is therefore quite necessary for a leader this passionate about their roles and those they lead work hand in hand with those that would always put them in check should situations arise that require tough decision making for the greater good. I believe organizations should have team leaders take these personality tests such that should the leader be an ENFJ personality, the assistant at least be a complementary.

References

Aranda, R. (2013). Myers-Briggs personality preferences may enhance physician leadership success in non-clinical jobs. Physician executive, 39(3), 14.

Myers, S. (2016). Myers‐Briggs typology and Jungian individuation. Journal of analytical psychology, 61(3), 289-308.

Wikström, E., & Dellve, L. (2009). Contemporary leadership in healthcare organizations: fragmented or concurrent leadership. Journal of health organization and management, 23(4), 411-428.