From matto:
Can you explain how to tell the difference between an ENTJ and INTJ?
I have a few easy tells to refer to (see the “Extraverted vs. Introverted TJs” section in What is Te?), and those are more standard–dominant Te is faster to react (along with tertiary Se), more ready to take up leadership, happy to mobilize resources, while dominant Ni is slower to react, more patient, more prone to working out paths in their mind before action. But I also have a specific tell for ENTJs vs. INTJs that’s less talked about: ask what their wants and desires are.
ENTJs are more straightforward in their desires. That doesn’t mean they’re simpler people, just that their wants can be named. On a basic level, with dom Te/tert Se, ENTJs are typically interested in external progress markers like working at a prestigious job, a bigger house, nicer car, dating someone who’s hot/interesting/smart, biohacking their body, etc. All ENTJs are, to some degree, interested in status and external measures of competence. Then, at one layer higher of abstraction, ENTJs are interested in big changes that stretch beyond themselves. This could mean: making a difference in their area of profession, promoting their nation and its interests, promoting a cause dear to their heart (can range from anything like philanthropy of the arts to religion to early education), changing the basic premise of how humans interact with our Earth, etc.
On the outside, INTJs are similar. Ni/Te drives towards objective results, so both INTJs and ENTJs are professionally driven, logical, and keen to enact real change in the world. But get close enough to an INTJ and ask them about their motivations, and you’d probably get something closer to: “Man is something that shall be overcome. Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope over an abyss. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.”
I’m not saying all INTJs are like Nietzsche, but their motivations can be equally esoteric in isolation. They’re really not what you expect them to be. The desires of INTJs seem to circle around the truth of virtue and the reason for existence. The philosophies they adopt or create to answer these questions can differ, and they can get unbearably depressed in the process, but no INTJ can escape their tertiary Fi, which points them like a broken compass towards their Ni purpose. It’s also for this reason that ENTJs are often better than INTJs at enacting change: while ENTJs are primed to, and satisfied with, changing the world, INTJs when they do so adopt a kind of ironic attitude towards it, for no external solution is ever going to live up to their philosophical vision.
Despite this, ENTJs and INTJs are more similar than they are different–they share the same cognitive functions in slightly different order. Their inner motivations might be drastically different, but most ENTJs and INTJs find that they inherently understand one another, even if they disagree on direction.
This was a reader request! Have a question? You can request a topic here.