ENTPs are speculative people who don’t like to follow the rules. This type has their own ideas about life and about work, and as a result they often find themselves in an entrepreneurship role. And their unique skills and preferences mean they often thrive in these types of positions.
Vision and Insights
ENTPs use extraverted intuition as their dominant function. This is a curious and creative function that drives them to explore the world and discover its patterns. It also means that they connect new ideas constantly and this is where their business insight usually comes from. This skill is very strong in ENTPs because they’re strongly drawn by data and other rational, logical information. It gives most ENTPs an insight into their interests and passions that few other types can match and is often the basis for their work as an entrepreneur.
ENTPs have the vision to lead others, but they can’t always convey the depth of their passion to others. They’re naturally great communicators, people who love to talk and debate and hear new ideas. But ENTPs talk rationally and logically and this can be a problem for personality types who are more emotional than they are. As a result, ENTPs often struggle to convey the depth of their passion and belief in their ideas, which means that others can’t always connect to their vision. This can be a major problem if the ENTP wants to inspire others to follow their lead.
Emotional Strengths and Weaknesses
ENTPs aren’t driven by their emotions. They’re thinkers who use introverted thinking as their auxiliary function, so they’re much more likely to make decisions and base their life as an entrepreneur on pure data. This doesn’t mean that they don’t have emotions, but their understanding and control of their emotions tends to be fairly rudimentary. ENTPs use extraverted feeling as their tertiary function, which means emotions only surface unexpectedly and when the ENTP is under stress. Despite this, ENTPs tend to be very passionate about their vision and thus about their work as an entrepreneur.
Their passion is a great bonus, but it can also be a problem for this type. ENTPs are usually very passionate at the start of their project, but this doesn’t last throughout the process. About three quarters of the way through their projects this type gets bored and making themselves finish things can feel like absolute torture. For this type, this is one of their biggest problems it often means they end up starting businesses and stopping before they start to see real results. This tendency is their foremost barrier to success and something they have to overcome if they want to finish the work and really succeed as an entrepreneur.
Workplace Strengths
ENTPs sometimes struggle to form warm working relationships and usually prefer those that are based on intellect and a shared work ethic. This type are naturally very rational and logical, and although they can and do bond with others, they’re often too focused on their work to do so, especially at the beginning of their entrepreneurship journey. This can be a disadvantage for this type, so they often team up with a partner or team who has the people skills that this type sometimes lacks.
ENTPS usually take criticism very well as long as it’s related to the business. They’re often a little more sensitive to personal criticism, but when the comments are rational and meant to be constructive, this type will usually take it in the same vein. The only exception is when the ENTP is already tired, stressed or feels overwhelmed. If people try to criticize when they’re already on edge it can cause an emotional explosion that the people around them will never forget. This will be rare though because ENTPs have a lot of emotional control, especially at work or when they need to act official.
Social Skills and Networking
ENTPs like to talk and to share their knowledge with others and they can use this to benefit their business and to network with others. They aren’t the best at this part of their work because they lack the emotional understanding and awareness that’s needed to instantly connect with other people, but they work hard to make up for it with their impressive communication skills. The types of connections that ENTPs make with these skills aren’t always the warmest, but they’re the type of connections ENTPs value the most, connections based on intellectual challenge and understanding.
In the Planning Stage
ENTPs are usually fairly good at the beginning stages of planning their projects. Because of their auxiliary function, introverted thinking, they have the ability to store and remember a lot of information and data and this makes them fairly good at working out what they need to do to start their business. However, they really don’t like dealing with red tape. The idea of filling out forms to start their business, getting the necessary paperwork done or taking care of all the details can literally feel like dying to this type. They won’t forget to do it, in fact they’ll probably remember every little detail, but they’ll also do everything they can to avoid this necessary part of entrepreneurship.
Building their Business
ENTPs aren’t natural organizers. They’re perceiving types, which means that their minds are very organized while their exterior world is left open to possibilities and new ideas. This is the way that ENTPs work best, but it isn’t always helpful in business. ENTPs will avoid putting routines and schedules into their business as much as possible. This doesn’t mean that they’ll miss appointments or anything, rather it means that they’ll be happiest if they’re allowed to work to their own schedule and routine. If they’re working with other types this can be a problem. Not many personality types can work well with the kind of freedom that ENTPS need and so they’ll probably have to learn to set and accept some structure if they want the people around them to work to their best too.
Final Thoughts
ENTPs often have both the intuition and the sheer brain power to do very well in entrepreneurship or as business leaders. In fact, this type of position is usually their most natural one and they’re usually very grateful once they can leave the daily grind and start following their intuition in this way.
References
- Storm, Susan. “Understanding ENTP Intuition“. Mar 23, 2017. (Retrieved Apr 2018).
- Storm, Susan. “How Each Myers-Briggs® Type Uses Their Tertiary Function“. Nov 20, 2017. (Retrieved Apr 2018).
- “ENTP – The Inventor“.
- “The ENTP Career Path“.
- “The ENTP in the Workplace“.