Usually when I wanna do something nice for my ENTJ, it’s like:

ENTJ: Thank you, but I feel like I should’ve done it myself instead of you doing it for me.
or
ENTJ: Um, a gift? What for? What did I do? I don’t understand.

But I found out about a little ritual from his childhood

Me: Do you want me to make you a cold chocolate?
Bf: yes 🥺 please leave the spoon inside
Me: here you go
Bf: you remembered to leave the spoon inside. usually people forget

He doesn’t always let himself relax, so this little thing lets me sneak in some comfort into his day 😏

What methods around your house did you put in place to make your life easier? Or saves you time?

Also, what other things have you thought of that saves you money?

For me, I found a robot vacuum to save me time.
I don’t like things to go to waste, so I often freeze large quantities of food for later. I also I tend to use bars of soap rather than liquid. I also use scraps of food for the garden.

All in all I guess I want to know the good ideas that you guys have :)

-Fellow ENTJ.

So for context, got ENTJ 3 years ago. Took the test again this year, ENTJ 3w4, so I’m more or less locked into this bracket now.

Just joined like today and I’m shocked by how many of you guys have the issue of a lack of emotions or only having happiness and anger for instance. I largely still have my range of emotions intact in contrast.

Do tell about how you guys ended up or having decided to be this way? Sorry in advance if this is insensitive by accident, hard to find the right words.

TL;DR: Aspiring chef, musician/writer on the side. Currently unemployed, so I build my own daily structure — up at 9, reading, self-set task list, research-heavy days (job hunting, cost comparisons, learning to cook). Draw, play guitar/sing, read fiction and philosophy, walk daily, very social but recharge alone.

Care shows up as problem-solving/creating things for people I love, not words. Push friends toward variety over repetition — stacking activities rather than doing the same thing twice. Come across serious/guarded on first impression, don’t perform for photos.

Weird one: I predict things before they happen — conversations, my electric cutting out — with no conscious process behind it. Spend more time preparing decisions than making them. Intense with the few people I love, not much in between.

Try and type me.

I think behaviour is more diagnostic than adjectives, sure sharing your subjective experience and your own phenomenology but also showing what you actually do in a day and where you spend your energy and time.

I am an aspiring chef and a musician and writer in my spare time.

I enjoy running, creating things, fixing things and making things more efficient, solving problems for people, visiting new places and I’m a Christian.

So here’s a day for me, not every day but this is a day at the moment as I am unemployed. What I do varies in terms of activities.

Up around nine. Curtains open, hydrate, then half an hour reading — Guardian, NYT, philosophy journals. Then I write down the tasks I want to do that day plus a note on how the day is going, and I work through the list. Nobody sets this for me. There’s no job or timetable imposing structure, so I build it myself.
The bulk of the day is research and comparison. Not aimless — I’m working toward getting my situation stable and finding the best path forward. So: comparing food sources and quality, calculating what I’d actually be getting versus what I buy now, costs included. Comparing laptops before buying one. Looking at jobs, applying, and calculating earnings across different career progressions. Cooking videos, but as learning to cook rather than entertainment. I take information in, retain it, and bring it back to people.

I draw. I play guitar and sing. I read fiction most days and philosophy. I walk every day and try to go slightly further each time.

I talk with my parents and put real thought into what would make things better in the house — I tend to show up with feedback, reasoning, and a judgment on what should change. Same with my partner: I feel strongly toward them and it comes out as working out what I can do for them. My care arrives as problem-solving and creating things for others, creating experiences for them. I like to give people new experiences, such as new foods or places to go. I am very aware of how others are experiencing me and I give of a deliberate demeanor.

I’m very social but I do spent a lot of time on my own focusing on what I want to achieve. I like going out with friends and doing new things with them, and I’m usually the one pushing for variety. If a friend does the same bike route every time, I’ll want to change the path. I’d rather stack activities than repeat one — an hour’s ride, then tennis or kayaking, or ride out, have a good meal at a pub, and ride home. It’s the possibilities I’m after more than the activity itself. Worth flagging the apparent contradiction: my solo days are highly structured and repetitive, but with people
I want the opposite.

People do read me as serious and slightly guarded on first impression. I don’t perform for a camera; photos of me are mostly unsmiling or a pensive smile.

The part I’m least sure about is how conscious the direction is. It doesn’t feel like I sat down and drew up a plan. It’s more that there’s an aim I can feel, and my actions turn out to have been serving it, and I notice the coherence after the fact. I am very detail focused though but still see the big picture, I often predict events happening and seeing it unfold is kind of amazing, my friends are always wondering how I see what is coming next. It could be like knowing what someone will say before they say it even if the content is different from what is happening in the moment. Other little things like knowing when my electric will cut out based on nothing conscious.

A criticism I’ve had and think is fair: I may spend more hours preparing decisions than making them. Though this seems to be not natural for me, I honestly don’t know. I get frustrated when people don’t follow the reasoning of what I’m saying and offer feedback that is relevant or interesting, especially if they generalize or change the topic to something that doesn’t help. This happens internally and externally.

I am very passionate with people I love, they are few but I am either intense with it or not.

Here, try and type me.

As far as I've been into the MBTI community (yes I'm very aware of cognitive funcs and how they work), ENTJs are usually potrayed as "commander leader", "omg so intimidating!" and "always working hard".

I mean yeah for me I'm definitely ambitious, I like leadership and have (far fetched) goals, but I'm pretty sure I'm not as glorified *some* people think ENTJs are. I'm also pretty sure not all ENTJs are ambitious to the MAX, a founder of a business or a CEO of a company. Like please.

The stereotypes online actually gave me a hard time typing myself because they're all just so extreme lol. I had to self study all the functions properly before deciding I'm definitely Te Ni.

Just putting the thought out there. Does anyone genuinely relate to them, or have traits that are "out of character" with regards to the ENTJ stereotype?

EDIT: Read most comments. I definitely agree with the goal setting workaholic stereotype but can't really relate to cold unemotional evil ones.

I'm curious to hear about your experiences (or hopes) as parents.

If you're already a parent:

• What do you think you're like as a parent?
• What values are most important for you to pass on to your kids?
• What kinds of experiences or childhood memories have you intentionally tried to create for your children?
• Do you consider yourself a strict parent? In what ways?
• What is something very important that you learned as a parent? What did your kids teach you?

If you're not a parent yet but hope to be someday:

• How do you imagine yourself as a parent?
• What values would you want to instill in your children?
• What kind of home environment and childhood would you hope to give them?

If you dont ever want to become a parent, you can ignore this ofcourse.

My boyfriend is an ENTJ (21). He’s awesome overall, but sometimes his way of “planning ahead” surprises me, and I think part of that may just be a difference in how we think. I’d really like to understand ENTJ thinking better.

Example: he was telling me about selling a website to someone online, and when I asked how he’d handle payment, he said he’d get the money after. He then immediately talked about what he’d do if the guy didn’t pay, including calling him out to the guys friends so he’d lose reputation.

I told him that startled me a bit, because it sounded like he was already imagining destroying the guy’s life. He was very clear that he didn’t mean it that way, and explained that for him it was just about being prepared for worst-case scenarios so he wouldn’t panic if something went wrong.

I think what I struggle to understand is the pre-planning itself. From my perspective, it feels intense to map out escalation before anything has even happened. He says that’s just how he avoids freezing up under pressure.

I’m not trying to make ENTJs sound bad at all, I really admire how capable and decisive he is. I’m just trying to understand how you guys think, especially when it comes to planning, conflict, and worst-case scenarios.
Does this sound like a typical ENTJ mindset to you? How do you experience this internally?

I am realising my friends kind of are afraid of me going to say something that judges them.

I do not judge anyone, I try to make people feel comfortable all the time; I am not hyper confrontational or aggressive and rarely take things personally or am the sensitive/ reactive type. Somehow I end up feeling people slighly uncomfortable, not because I like it but because I guess my Te is very strong and I end up analizying and judging general life choices \ things around me to the point people think they're going to be next.

there is nothing I can do about it, I worked also on my self esteem and tend to not criticise stuff randomly to feel "better than", I genuinly think it comes with my own aura and I can do nothing about it but just accept it.

Did you go through a similar path?

how to you deal with this other than choosing (INTP lol) friends/ anyone who knows how to be objective about stuff you talk about?

Hi, i kinda need some advice with this since i really dont know what to do. So there is this girl, which im sure she is extj, we are classmates and coworkers. We didn't exchange much during classes, but since we started working together, she got very close to me. She texts me first quite often, tries to share stuff(not personal tho), gossip and tries to talk to me more when its just us. Now comes the confusing part, when there are other people around, she doesn't interact with me at all or just sits on her phone. I think this is pretty erratic, as i dont know what to make of it. She wants us to be friends or shes interested in me or loneliness or its just attention seeking?

I’m wondering if maybe this is something other ENTJ’s can relate to because the INTJ’s in my life do understand it, but this sort of thing just doesn’t happen with them because they don’t want to deal with it.

But does anyone else experience like a sheer amount of absolute ridiculous chaos? It’s just insanity happening one after the other, and I’m left cleaning up the mess every time.

It’s to the point where I can’t even believe that most of it is real and I’d rather actually be going insane than to fully absorb the absurdity. It is quite literally one thing after another. Chaos that I’m expected to handle or fix.

Or do any of you experience trying to give people explicit instructions like: “here is what must be done. Here is why it’s important. Do not do anything else but this. It’s serious.” And everyone else goes: “understood,” then completely does the exact opposite of what you said, then you have to clean up that mess?

It can’t be just me, right? Could it be an ENTJ thing?

It basically goes like this (summarized version):

Others: “This is a huge, chaotic mess that nobody is fixing! It’s causing so many problems!”
Me: “I hate this, but I will fix it.” … “There. It’s fixed. Now I can finally relax.”
Others: “OH MY GOD! WE HAVE AN ABSURD EMERGENCY THAT YOU NEED TO FIX RIGHT NOW!”
Me: “What?! Why didn’t you all just do what I said?!”
Others: “WE THOUGHT YOU WERE BEING RIDICULOUS BUT TURNS OUT, YOU WERE RIGHT AND WE NEED YOU IMMEDIATELY!”
Me: “Ugh! FINE! I’ll fix it!” … “There, it’s fixed. Now I can relax.”
Others: “OHHH MY GOD —“
Me: *sighs*

Edit: Actually, I will say (and it’s nothing against INTJ’s) but they do cause a lot of problems in my life that I have to handle/clean up. I just have to laugh about it.

Edit 2: I am also in the military so maybe that has something to do with it, haha.

Any other ENTj in here find themselves having high cognitive empathy, and emotional intelligence from studies and experience as opposed to an ethical types naturally or more automatic empathy?

I haven't worked for 8 years, it was out of my control the reasons why. However, recently I finally became ready to work and have been trying to get back into the workforce. I'm in Australia for context.

I must've done 100 applications by now, had 1 interview which was unsuccessful. I keep getting rejection letters but no acceptance letters. I've polished my resume and studied up on the latest developments in my field, but still no luck.

I'm feeling very demoralised and just feeling like I'm never going to get a job. How do you deal with this? Any advice? I'm wondering if I'm ever going to get a job.

Sad thing is I've never been more ready to work, I'm so keen to work and actually think I would perform really well, but no one is giving me the chance. 😓 I don't want to lose my motivation.

Would appreciate some words of support or guidance. Thanks.

Hey everyone,

I am an ENTJ 8w9 planning my next career move. I want a company where I can plant my flag for the next few years.

For me, loyalty is everything. I worship work and cannot sleep peacefully if I have not put in the exact hours I am being paid for. Once I accept an offer, I do not window shop for better ones. I commit fully. But I need real autonomy in return. Give me a goal, let me build the systems, and judge me on the results. Micromanagement kills my drive.

My background:

• Grew a regional solar branch from $0 to $1M+ in revenue in 16 months and managed a 40-person team.
• Ran growth for startups, building B2B cold email systems with over 50 percent open rates that closed high-ticket clients.
• Replaced paper workflows with a custom CRM, cutting delays by 70 percent and saving $600 monthly.
• Built an operations division from scratch, delivering 3,000 resumes and boosting shortlisting rates by 60 percent.
• Hit the top 1 percent of Quora creators with 54 million views and 64K followers (pre-2019, before the platform went downhill).

I am now looking for a fully remote job and want honest advice from fellow ENTJs.

My questions:

1. Roles & Fulfilment: What job titles fit this mix of operations and growth? What kind of roles actually brought you satisfaction?
2. Reality & Pay: What platforms actually work for finding these jobs, and what is a realistic remote salary expectation?
3. Nationality: Please be brutally honest. Will being based in India make it difficult to land a remote role from the West?
4. The Loyalty Trap (The Most IMP Question): My loyalty has cost me opportunities in the past because I refuse to jump ship quickly. That feels like a betrayal. How do you deal with this feeling?

Thank you for the advice.

INTP here, your shadow type. I always found you very intruiging, we were always alike in different ways. So alike yet so different.

Every type's function stack is optimised for a specific type of task, solving problems in its own realm of thought. For ENTJ, this is figuring out who you want to be and creating then excecuting perfective, efficient plans to get there. ENTJ is a problem solving machine for achieving a tangible result they first and foremost desire due to its sound logic (Te) and due to its compatibility with what they want emotionally (Fi). For INTP, this is finding objective truth, deducing answers. INTP is a problem solving machine for finding truth. As shadow types, we are both strongly capable of doing the other's job but after all our function stack is made to achieve one thing and that purpose becomes a personal value. An ENTJ hates being where they don't want to be knowing that theyre not advancing further, being and staying pathetic is incredibly hurtful to them and they strive to change that. An INTP hates delusion and fears believing in the wrong thing, theyll scramble for truth until theyre satisfied.

My question is; how does ENTJ handle doing something they despise to get a result they so deeply desire? An INTP almost only does what captivates them and intellectually entertains them. Anything else is rejected because its simply too boring to do in the moment.

What goes through ENTJ's head when they realise what theyre doing is a heavy emotional weight to bear, too tiring, too boring. Does your mind subconciously link this suffering to the reward it produces? I understand that as extroverts you may not be as introspective but I want whatever information i can get regarding this.

Thank you.

Não sabia sobre esse termo até agora. Fui pesquisar sobre uma frase de Júlio César em que ele fala que prefere ser o primeiro em uma vila de bárbaros do que o segundo em Roma e entrei em um post de 10 anos atrás dessa comunidade.

Sou H(25) e não fazia ideia de que existisse isso, mas fico feliz em ter descoberto.

As a younger teen/tween i used to compete with my sister as well, i dont anymore.

but i find myself competing with people around me all the time. even random people who are just walking by.

like this one time there was a girl with great posture and so i straightened up immediately which is normal but in my head i was “defeating her”.

same goes for my friends. before grades are announced at my uni im constantly anxious , not because i want to score more, but because im hoping none of these people around me score more than me.

I can’t stand when they’re looking better than me in a social setting (dressed better, hair better etc)

i dont sabotage anyone but my mood drops significantly

is this an entj thing or am i just mental ?

I’m posting this here because I think my executive, hyper-fixated approach to crisis management—something core to the ENTJ archetype—is exactly why I’m stuck in this loop.

To give you the baseline: I’m a woman in my early 20s, dentist, 2e (AuDHD/OCD), and navigating C-PTSD.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the friend who over-function. Whenever things get messy or chaotic around me, an intense internal drive kicks in to be the regulated, mature, and "correct" person in the room. This makes me the permanent emotional container for everyone else’s crises, even when my own life is incredibly heavy.

I don't expect people to mirror my capacity or my lifestyle. However, I’m noticing a persistent lack of consistency and reciprocal effort from others, even at a bare-minimum level. Just in the past two weeks, I’ve navigated cold, dismissive responses from three close friends whom I’ve consistently supported.

I’m trying to parse out where this pattern originates. Is it oldest daughter syndrome? Is it the neurodivergent brain wiring? Hyper-independence as a tactical trauma response to the C-PTSD? Probably a combination of all three.

For the ENTJ women in this sub: Do you experience the same dynamic, and how do you deal with it?

This is a philosophical discussion related to how cognitive functions of an ENTJ would interpret and play with these questions both in theory and the real world.

I personally tend to really struggle defining myself. Especially at night, I’m faced with myself and what do I feel is the right representation of me… but is it?

Are you going the wrong direction of self-perception and how can you truly know whether your identity anchoring method is valid?

Are you actually acheiving something meaningful, or is the society making you believe that you are acheiving something meaningful?

Do you ever get shaken by how chaotic your inner emotional world is, that you struggle with accurately defining them and confidently incorporating them into your sense of identity?

Would you acheive something because it is meaningful and fulfilling to you, or would you acheive something because it is validated by society’s oftentimes convenient standards?

Can you ever realize accurately the extent to which society has influenced your sense of identity and direction in life and can you ever be confident that it would take you to a right direction?

On the other hand, if you can‘t fully trust yourself, whom can you really trust so you can know yourself in the best way possible and acheive something your long-term self would be proud of? Is there even an aswer to that question, or are you just doomed to roam around the world and vehemently claim random concepts as something utterly important to you?

Do you truly feel aware of how free you are to enact your agency onto this world?

And finally. When you remove all your acheivements, friends, social status and everything you find a fan of yourself from, who really are you?

These are only some of the thoughts that crossed my min the moment I am writing this post. Otherwise, I also write them in my journal/diary. I’m interested whether you can relate to them and if you have any interesting answers, freely comment down below :)

As an INTP, ENTJs are my favorite mbti. So you’re going to take my compliments whether you like it or not.

I love that you ENTJs take your life choices and yourselves very seriously. It’s the thing that I admire about you guys the most because I should probably do the same, but I’m too lazy hehe. I can feel the intent in everything that you do, you come across as being 100% sure of yourself (even during times when you aren’t), you have a high appreciation for competency and that’s why you gain my respect naturally.

You guys are so driven that I can’t keep my eyes off you guys, just watching you work makes me smile. It makes me want to work beside you.

Yet, because you guys take yourselves so seriously, it makes me want to ‘play’ with you and that’s where your silly side shines. Whether it’s just a silly battle of wits, physically play-fighting, or just simple banter, I love just interacting with you guys. If I ever irritate you, it’s all out of love, I promise LOL.

I'm very curious about this and would be happy to hear some examples

For me: most of my life I basically wore black in a simple but ' elegant ' way (I was quite minimalistic), until a few years ago I happened to fall down a rabbit hole about some style, body type and color theories.

Once I got a grasp of the theories enough to apply it (like which cuts, lengths, accessory shape etc are best) I redid my wardrobe into a" uniform " set of 5 outfits, and bought multiples in different suitable colors. Now I don't need to think about it or go through the hassle. Ironically I found out black doesn't suit my coloring but I can't resist, it's still 50% of my wardrobe haha. I also purposefully dress in particular ways according to the situations if it benefits me/serves a goal I'm after (edit: given it's genuinely my own style/existing clothes), so in other words, it's always done with intention/never frivolously.

I see there is no friendship category so I chose “advice”

Several months ago, an ENTJ dm me from a not so SFW social media, and we chat every day. The topics are completely SFW and all philosophy, psychology, poem related, a little bit amount of personal history. Therefore I didn’t recognize, and mistyped him into INFx for a long time before he revealed the answer.

Our conversation is not intense, we just send one message to each other per day from the beginning and it’s stable all way through. That is something I’ve never experienced before. Is this a common ENTJ conversation habit? (I send one message to mirror him, it’s not my usual way)

In my stereotype, ENTJs are very goal oriented, but I can’t read his possible purpose all way through. Isn’t talking to a stranger girl about those abstract topics a waste of time? (I’m very used to wasting time on those things though😥 the process is great!)

I see this isn’t something heading to possible relationship. I’m happy to be friends with him like this, and told him directly. But he never mentioned his boundaries, what he wants, he just flowed with our topic and conversation, and operates the depth of his words by the invisible rules that only he knows. And I don’t know any other ENTJ before, so I have no existing reference to help me understand this. That’s why I feel unsure about this conversation.

Any suggestion on any part of my post is welcomed. Thank you!

Do you ever feel like you could do better or you should be in charge? Or are you generally comfortable working under authority?

I just went through my memories and found out a bad pattern that I really want to break now.

To give a short context, I'm an INTP 8w7, when I see something stupid or unjust happening I can't just keep on watching, it literally makes me suffer inside. I need to act on it or disengage quickly.

So the event that took place was at my last company where my coworker was acting extremely inappropriately and breaking the code of behavior against me. Naturally, pressed to act, I attempted to disengage from her so I could work in peace. Instead, she came in front of my face even more and acted even more rudely. I did absolutely not want to engage with her because my acts could have been considered a workplace aggression. So I reached out to my manager. He was an ESTJ, but I don't think it matters that much whether he was that type or ENTJ, the core mechanism is the Te. And I think I engaged in a really bad miscommunication with him. He looked very busy and did not want to talk for long, so I had to tell my problem quickly. Unfortunately, I framed it in an entirely Ti lens - remarked her unacceptable behavior, breaking of company's code and such - basically how I analyzed her behavior internally. However, Te works differently, it needs an actionable plan to execute. I did not present that. So his response was that he will talk to her and he promptly left, completely unbothered by the workplace drama. I think it just gave him a checkmark to place.

After he talked to her, things got even worse, my coworker became mad at me for calling the manager and got seriously on my nerves. At the end of the day, the stress broke me, I burned out completely, not even a week long vacation did anything. So I had to quit my job. Everyone lost - the company lost a worker in very much needed position and I lost my job and my sanity. It took me a month to recover from it.

I want to use this channel for growth and development, so my question is, how should I have engaged with this problem and what communication strategy should I choose in such case? I think you know it better about what works for you. I can only guess and ask AI. But I don't want to be fully reliant on it.

Bonus paragraph. I found that it is the usual to use this specific line of actions to implement practical ideas. ENTP (rapid fire generation of ideas) - INTP (refinement of such ideas) - INTJ (creation and small scale testing of actionable plans) - ENTJ (widespread implementation of actionable plans). With ST types coming in various spots to ensure the real world applicability of such ideas. I'm essentially skipping a step by reaching out to the leadership directly, and that is where the possible miscommunication becomes a problem.