Understanding your personality type is more important than ever in an age when we use social media, smartphones, and other technology to communicate with others every day. Typing yourself into one of 16 different personality categories can help you better understand who you are, which is great for personal growth but also can help improve work relationships.
Each personality type uses four functions to make decisions and interpret information: Extroverted or Introverted, Perceiving or Judging, Thinking or Feeling, Intuitive or Sensing. As with any decision-making process, your dominant function will take precedence over your auxiliary function.
What follows is a breakdown of each personality type’s strengths as well as weaknesses, so you can make an educated decision as to which best describes you. In order to effectively communicate what makes each personality type different, I have broken down the comparison into two categories: core characteristics and day-to-day life.
Can You Be Both ENTP & ENTJ?
Although both personalities are extroverted, represented by the E, the way in which each personality approaches its surroundings makes them very different.
Both personalities are rare, and not everybody is suited for the roles these energetic magnets tend to fill, but an ENTJ is the rarest of all 16 personalities making up only 1.8% of the population.
The ENTP is a Debater, questioning everything in order to find the truth or the root of the issue. Not necessarily meaning to come across as arrogant or rude, the ENTP tends to insult some people and, in the long run, can alienate people from them.
The ENTJ is the Visionary, driven by the bigger picture, and they can visualize concepts and ideas that most people struggle to find solutions to. However, they may struggle to get their point across to others to understand their concept and easily get irritated with other people’s incompetence.
You may find some similarities in the personalities, but delving deeper into the core values of the two personalities, you will find that they can be very different in the way they interact with other people and the tasks at hand.
ENTPs are fearless and tackle the subject head-on, wanting to find the truth; they aim to be skeptical in order to find the solutions, combining their dominant extroverted intuition (Ne) with their auxiliary introverted Thinking (Ti) function.
Driven by intellectual achievement, ENTPs love to learn new things and come up with new concepts and theories where they can analyze information.
ENTJ Are strong-willed, and their resilience and desire for competence make them strong leaders as they can easily express and communicate with others due to their dominant extroverted Thinking (Te) and their auxiliary introverted iNtuition(Ni).
So even though you may feel that you could fit into the two personalities, there is often a distinctive method to your values and interaction with others that will determine in which of the boxes you will fit.
Are ENTPs And ENTJs The Same?
Even though they are different in some ways, there are a number of similarities between ENTPs and ENTJs. Both types are good at reading situations and coming up with inventive solutions to problems. They are also critically minded and eager to introduce new ideas but may find it challenging to put them into practice.
Breaking down the ENTP and ENTJ Stack to understand how each one works and how their cognitive stack determines how they act.
ENTP Functions is how the ENTP personality interacts with the world according to cognitive stacks.
- Extraverted intuition (Fe)
- Introverted thinking (Ti)
- Extraverted feeling (Fe)
- Introverted sensing (Si)
ENTJ Functions is how the ENTJ personality interacts with the world according to cognitive stacks.
- Extraverted thinking (Te)
- Introverted intuition (Ni)
- Extraverted sensing (Se)
- Introverted feeling (Fe)
So even though they only have one letter that is different in the stack, the order of how they interact with their surrounding is very different.
This list below may help you better understand the personality traits and characteristics of ENTP vs. an ENTJ.
| ENTP | ENTJ |
| Full of innovative ideasOpen to exploring new challengesQuick thinkers with a multitude of solutionsConvergent and analytical thinkersPrefer precision of productivityFocused on the problem at handEasily irritable if they can’t get the point acrossSpontaneous and flexibleCritical thinking | Task-orientate and focused on productive solutions.Great at fixing disorganized and ineffective solutionsBig Picture goals and dreamsDivergent thinkersFocus on the quick progress of a taskFocused on the future Articulate their ideas easilyPlanned and organizedCreative thinking |
ENTP & ENTJ Comparison Of Strengths And Weaknesses
Strengths of ENTP will give allow them to appear fearless in the eyes of others, jumping into new projects and taking on the unknown with grace. An ENTJ, on the other hand, is strong-willed and tends to seem more ambitious.
Although both personalities are independent and enjoy being around people due to their extroverts in them, an ENTP needs much more time alone than an ENTJ.
ENTPs tend to find it difficult to focus, which can make them seem to be procrastinators. Where ENTJs master what they do and do what applies to them and their life and work.
ENTP is intellectually curious about subjects and is tempted by several ideas at once but can be fearful of failures. ENTJs, on the other hand, are more interested in people and sharing their expertise and knowledge with others.
The ENTP comes across as very confident, thinking quickly on their feet and being able to adapt to situations around them, though they tend to be impractical at times and have a tendency to break the norms of society.
ENTJs are efficient but tend to be blunt and dominant at times with very poor handling of their emotions that tend to make them difficult to reason with.
Can You An ENTP Become An ENTJ?
Even though you may feel that you tick several boxes in both personalities, one function will always be dominant over the others, making it vertically impossible to change from ENTP to ENTJ.
Traits can overlap in each personality, but the way you are wired to interact with your environment dictates which personality you will tend to pull to.
So, no, it is very unlikely that you can change from an ENTP to an ENTJ personality.
Conclusion
Fitting into one of the 16 boxes that describe our personalities is not always as black and white as we would want it to be. Some may be cut and dry and fix the box perfectly, whereas others may have overlapping traits that make you think you could be two or more personalities, but in the end, there are always more traits steering you into one specific personality.
