INTJ Leadership Identifiers – What Makes Them Lead?

The Myers Briggs Type Indicator is a tool that has been around since 1962, identifying the different personality types and discerning personality type, leadership skills and other information that can help identify a good leader, or at least those with potential for leadership roles.

The typical INTJ personality is one who wants to make things happen, rather than aspire to leadership. But their ability to focus on the achievement of goals and their organizational ability makes them highly effective leaders when often complex tasks need accomplishing.

According to one report people like Elon Musk, Jay-Z, (left) Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mark Zuckerberg, Stephen Hawking, Sir Isaac Newton and Jason Bateman are all INTJ personalities.

Among the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator are preferences within some identified categories including –

• Extraversion and Introversion, involving people and things in the former and ideas and information in the latter
• Sensing facts and reality, or sensing possibilities (Intuition)
• Thinking, being logic and truth, or ‘feelings’ of values and relationships
• Perception, being a lifestyle that is structured using Judgment or one that goes with the flow (Perception).

The Myers Briggs indicator breaks out 16 types from these four, using letter identifiers and combining the various types using introversion/extraversion, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, judgment/perception.

The INTJ Personality Type

The INTJ personality type is the strategic leader who can be an effective leader displaying the ability to develop a long-term vision with good strategic planning ability.

These are intelligent individuals who often have a high energy level and have the organizational behavior to create solutions that are innovative and strategic for what may be complex issues.

The leadership style displayed by either INTJ women or INTJ men is the ability be good listeners, but also putting in place the innovative ideas that will bring their vision to life.

The INTJ personality will prefer to work in a focused, fast-paced environment where the team members can work with open minds, but also with a goal orientated state of mind. These are people who will have a good communication style, but will shun being micro-managed and engaging in small talk, rather focusing on achieving the end goal successfully.

The leadership style of the INTJ type is independent on the one hand, but also highly motivated by the idea of fixing an issue or achieving a solution to a problem.

Unlike others in leadership positions who foster personal relationships and fit easily into social settings, the INTJ leader is more inclined to be single-minded and focus on strong visions and achievement.

They do not, in other words, always ‘tolerate fools’ or get too caught up in the intricacies of personal relationship-building. Their goal is all-important and so their focus is very much to achieve that or those goals.

The INTJ Leadership Issues

One issue that can and does arise with the INTJ personality is that they are not always the best fit for the particular team they are set to lead.

Social interactions are not their strong point. They may be someone who is a visionary leader, but great leaders also require characteristics of being able to easily and effectively communicate their goals and that can be an issue for the INTJ personality who is not always ready or able to communicate what they seek to achieve.

the INTJ leader cannot always achieve that objective readily and while they are original thinkers, they also have blind spots that can create issues in a team situation.

However they are also the sort of personality type who will reward meritocracy and recognize those best qualified to take on a role. They are not ego-centric and given to self promotion, being more interested in achieving the necessary goals.

A Top INTJ Leadership Quality

Unlike the ENTJ’s who have a natural desire towards leadership positions, the INTJs do not generally regard themselves as leaders because their focus is more on the overall goal to be achieved. But they have significant leadership abilities that can be extremely effective.

Despite the foregoing, the INTJ leader, being a strategist, is very good at both understanding how to do the problem solving and reach the end goal and the strategies to use in doing so, but also excellent at allocating resources to achieve the goal.

The INTJ personality is fundamentally logic-driven. They will assess a procedure, system or issue and assess whether it is workable or good and come up with a solution to any issue – which they will relentlessly pursue towards completion.

They certainly carry a positive attitude towards solving complex problems, but their single minded approach can sometime be alienating if not effectively communicated.

However, their focus upon reaching a successful conclusion and achieving their goal is one that makes them the kind of leader that is very much to the fore, leading by example if not by effective communication.

How To Build Effective INTJ Leadership

Explain and communicate

The crucial role for those seeking to be the type of leader who will produce results as well as build a team, is to communicate the goals effectively.

INTJ personality types are often strong individualists and want to move in a positive direction. They do however need to share their perspectives and insights into the assignment in a way that lets everyone understand what the big picture is.

Build the team through inclusiveness

A second part to being an effective INTJ leader is to focus upon those weak spots – the building of interpersonal relationships and team building. This can be done to achieve better outcomes using an inclusive management style and helping meld the team given the different type of personality that will characterize team members.

As the typical INTJ leader is one given to meritocracy and is not a domineering type, they will willingly allocate roles to those best qualified to fulfil them.

Focus on the Vision

Because INTJ personality types have vision and can grasp strategy they are best able to both identify the goal and also strategize the way to reach it. They are not ambivalent or indecisive, but rather focused and dedicated to achieving the result that is identified. They are the sort that want to fix what is broken and to get the job done with efficiency and proper allocation of resources.

The Final INTJ Result

When the abilities of the INTJ personality and his or her abilities are melded with the accomplishment of a complex task, the results can be extremely effective. Their natural desire to not be a leader is sometimes the very quality that can make them a great leader. It is not leadership that they crave, but rather the desire to complete a task effectively and efficiently.

Their ability to effect positive change and use novel ways to achieve it, or at least to deploy logical plans is a major attribute. When married with an equal ability to build a team, they become unbeatable leaders.