ENTP

The Visionary
The ENTP personality type is Extraverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving, which means they are energized by working with others, focused on understanding people and problems, creative and systematic thinkers, and comfortable with frequent, fast-paced change. This combination of personality preferences produces people who love taking on challenges deemed impossible by others. Quick-witted, confident, and charming, they are visionaries with infectious enthusiasm. ENTPs trust their instincts, are not bound by convention, and are rarely judgmental; however they can be impatient and impractical.

The ENTP at Work

At work, the ENTP is concerned with applying innovative solutions to challenging problems to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of systems. ENTPs often take an entrepreneurial approach to their work and they prefer to approach tasks in a casual and unstructured way, with few limitations on their ingenuity. ENTPs prize competency and often want to be the expert. They enjoy work that demands continual improvement in their knowledge and skills. They value power, and want a career that allows them contact with powerful people and the opportunity to increase their own influence. ENTPs are idea people, and chafe at routine. They get bored very quickly when required to repeat a task or attend to details. They do best when their work is highly conceptual, and allows them to solve problems creatively without having to think through the details. The ideal work environment for an ENTP is intellectually challenging without being rigid, with creative and intelligent coworkers. The ideal job for an ENTP allows them to put their creativity to work developing innovative ideas, while allowing them to delegate responsiblity for the tedious details of implementation to others.

ENTP Career Stats

The ENTP on a Team

ENTPs are ingenious, entrepreneurial team members who want to explore new and creative ideas. Flexible and adaptable, the ENTP wants to discover the best way to do something, and is often excited by an opportunity to innovate. ENTPs are generally energetic and optimistic, and confident in their ability to solve difficult problems. They often feel the best solutions come from skirting or even ignoring the rules, and rarely have much interest in adhering to the established procedures. They may have considerable friction with teammates who take a more traditional approach. ENTPs are typically open-minded, and like to hear many perspectives on an issue. They are good at synthesizing information and often show a talent for incorporating the best of many ideas into one, unified concept. However, they can be competitive, and sometimes like to take the credit for a team’s successes. They are rarely good at hammering out details, and may want to take ownership for the group’s overall direction, while leaving the exact specifications of the plan to their teammates.

The ENTP as a Leader

In leadership positions, ENTPs are imaginative and enterprising. ENTP leaders tend to be intellectually competitive, and want a team that can keep up. They are likely to encourage independence and creative thinking among their reports, but will subject any new ideas, including their own, to a thorough and critical analysis. ENTPs look for trends, and want to have plenty of information and data available in their search for patterns and principles. They tend to be focused on systems more than people, and may neglect their team's emotional needs in the pursuit of knowledge, understanding, and innovation. When they do focus on personal concerns, their strength lies in strategy rather than diplomacy, and they often use their understanding of human behavior to engineer and influence social systems.

ENTP Careers to Avoid

It is important to note that any personality type can be successful in any occupation. However, some occupations are well suited to the natural talents and preferred work style of the ENTP, while other occupations demand modes of thinking and behavior that do not come as naturally to the ENTP. Occupations that require the ENTP to operate outside their natural preferences may prove stressful or draining, and often sound unappealing to ENTPs who are choosing a career.

The following occupations have been found to be unpopular among ENTPs, based on data gathered from surveys of the general population.