Many ENFJs go into entrepreneurship or business on their own. They have the skills and the vision to make this career path a natural fit for them and enjoy both the challenges and the freedoms that this way of life offers.
Vision and Insights
ENFJs have big dreams and big visions for their life and for the world. This usually comes from their introverted intuition auxiliary, which takes in information and uses it to see the patterns of life and make predictions about the future. It allows them to predict upcoming trends and is often the basis of their business ideas and direction. This function usually makes them very good entrepreneurs or business leaders who are always happy to take risks and seem to be right more often than not. ENFJs are also very good at sharing their vision with others. Their dominant function, extraverted feeling, makes them very good at communicating with and inspiring others and this can be a winning combination when it comes to entrepreneurship.
Emotional Strengths and Weaknesses
ENFJs are driven by their emotions but this isn’t usually in a selfish way. They’re idealists who want to make everyone around them happy and usually their business is based on this value as well. This makes them passionate leaders who naturally motivate and inspire the people around them to do great work in pursuit of the ENFJs vision. And this is a very good quality for a leader to have.
ENFJs sometimes see business failures as personal failures. This type has a very strong sense of personal responsibility, too strong sometimes. So if something goes wrong, particularly something that hurts other people in some way, they’ll take it extremely hard and may retreat into themselves. This especially applies if their business has employees or partners who are affected by the mistake or failure. ENFJs have very strong values when it comes to the people around them, they want to make them happy and avoid causing harm at all costs. And if they find that their mistake or business failure has caused harm it can result in a lot of turmoil and blame.
Workplace Strengths
An ENFJs most beneficial skill as an entrepreneur or business owner is their emotional intelligence. This type likes to interact with and inspire others. They love nothing more than meeting new people and sharing their vision with them. This makes them ideal for the role of a business owner and it usually makes them incredibly happy in this role as well. ENFJs can sense what others need, sense what they will need in the future, and can then build their business around those needs. And meeting these needs can bring them a lot of business success at the same time as making the ENFJ feel happy and fulfilled.
One possible emotional weakness that ENFJs may struggle with when setting up their own business is their sensitivity to criticism. ENFJs are emotional people and this often translates to them having difficulty dealing with criticism. ENFJs may understand that this is one of the best ways to identify and deal with problems, but they still tend to take it too much to heart. And when it comes to their business, they may see criticism as a sign that they’re not doing enough and try to work harder when they’re already taking on a lot of responsibility and work. This can lead to them burning out, so they need to be cautious when it comes to their reactions to criticism.
Social Skills and Networking
Networking is where ENFJs shine. This type uses extraverted feeling as their dominant, which means that they’re naturally in sync with what others need, want and feel. They can use this emotional intelligence to keep their clients, employees and partners happy and they can also use it to motivate and inspire others to follow them. ENFJs also usually enjoy networking as well. There’s nothing that ENFJs like more than working out what others are feeling and coming up with solutions to help them. And networking for their own business allows them to do this in a way that brings them more profit and more business success.
In the Planning Stage
ENFJs are judging types which means they like to organize their external world and leave their internal world as open as possible. This means that when they’re setting up their own business, they’ll usually have a detailed plan for every step of the process. Most ENFJs will organize everything, down to the smallest detail, which will usually help the process go smoothly and eliminate the chances of anything going wrong. ENFJS can actually go a little overboard with this process sometimes, which leads to them trying to control every aspect of the business. This can be a great benefit if they’re going into the business on their own, but if they have partners or employees it can also be overwhelming. ENFJs need to take care that their need to control everything doesn’t overwhelm their vision or destroy their enjoyment of the entire process.
Building their Business
ENFJs are usually extremely tolerant people and this will be reflected in the type of business they build. They’re more interested in ideas than in someone’s lifestyle or choices, and will happily go into business with people who are very different to them. In fact, most ENFJs will see these differences as a benefit, because they instinctively understand the value of a good team and that a balanced mix of viewpoints and opinions is key to creating this team. To this end, most ENFJs will set in place their own expectations and working schedules, but they’ll also be open to input from others, particularly information that helps the business run more smoothly or makes their workers happier.
Final Thoughts
ENFJs usually do well in their own business. In fact, this type is extremely likely to move into entrepreneurship at some stage and to both enjoy it and find great success in this career path. Being an entrepreneur is so attractive to this type because it allows them to use their natural skills to their best advantage and to work according to their own rhythms and preferences.
References
- Blake. “INFJ vs. ENFJ: Got Introverted Intuition?“. Feb 9, 2015. (Retrieved Apr 2018).
- Storm, Susan. “Understanding ENFJ Feeling“. Mar 17, 2017. (Retrieved Apr 2018).
- “Judging or Perceiving“. (Retrieved Apr 2018).
- “ENFJ – The Mentor“.
- “The ENFJ Career Path“.
- “The ENFJ in the Workplace“.