ESTJ Personality Profile – The Supervisor

1. Overview

ESTJ refers to people who take energy from their time with others (extroversion), focus on facts and details rather than ideas and concepts (sensing), make logical and rational decisions (thinking), and prefer planned and organized events (judging) rather than spontaneous ones. ESTJs are also called supervisors because they tend to take responsibility and make sure things are done correctly (Kroeger & Thuesen, 2013).

2. Strengths

Commitment: ESTJs take their mission seriously. When they are bored or have difficulty, they do not leave their work uncomplete, they continue to make an effort until they finish the work they started. They can work for hours on topics that they interest in and consider important. Employers can rely on ESTJs to support the company vision, work most efficiently, and encourage their teammates to do the same.

Organization and efficiency: ESTJs are always organized; they work by creating lists and programmatically. They are good at managing people, sharing fair tasks, and making objective decisions. These abilities instill the idea to others that they are reliable and consistent towards them.

Straightness and honesty: ESTJs don't like to talk around; they express their opinions clearly. In addition, ESTJs are concerned with facts rather than opinions and ideas and act in line with the facts.

Managerial ability: ESTJs are individuals who hold themselves personally responsible for maintaining the standard and creating a clear picture of what is right and what is wrong. Therefore, ESTJs always tend to support the laws, rules, and regulations that keep society organized and functional.

Loyalty, patience, and trust: ESTJs are known as truthful and reliable. They are serious and meticulous in fulfilling their responsibilities and promises. Therefore, they easily gain the trust of people.

Rule, system, and integrity: ESTJs do not like unsystematic processes and chaos. Therefore, they need to clearly define the rules, plans and role sharing in their environment and they take on this task with pleasure. ESTJs believe that the rules apply to them as well as their subordinates and exhibit a consistent integrity in leadership roles. Although they establish a great deal of authority, they respect their superiors and thus have no trouble following their superiors' orders (Chauhan & Chauhan, 2001).

3. Weaknesses

Judgment: ESTJs have quite clear thoughts and value judgments about socially accepted values and what is right or not. There is no room for flexibility in their value systems and they are opposed to changing them. Their own truths and value judgments can sometimes cause them to have difficulty seeing the truth.

Ignoring feelings: ESTJs generally don't take into account both their own and others' feelings; this can make them appear stern, utilitarian, and apathetic. Objective and rational perspectives precede their feeling. That's why they often have difficulty expressing their feelings and understanding what others are feeling.

Workaholism: ESTJs' professional ethics are appreciated, but such people can also make mistakes on the side of workaholism and perfectionism. The intensive work of ESTJs for long hours can be challenging for those on the team. ESTJs who are familiar to working hard, spare little time to rest.

Stubbornness and inflexibility: ESTJs are very committed to social rules and their own principles. This can directly block their personal development process, because ESTJs are firmly committed to their beliefs and their own rights, they cannot accept new information that is altered and perhaps likely to lead to a more accurate result. This approach restricts ESTJs’ practical approach to events, creative thinking, and vision determination skills.

Avoiding unfamiliar methods: ESTJs want to try, test the methods they will use and check their results. Therefore, they prefer to use methods that they have tried and trust, rather than methods that they have not experienced before.

Importance to social status: ESTJs, who value their reputation and dignity too much, care about what others think of themselves too. That’s why they pay close attention to each movement and attitude, therefore they often ignore their own needs (Chauhan & Chauhan, 2001).

4. Values and Motivations

ESTJs value standards, rules, traditional methods, and facts. ESTJs, who are relying on their personal experiences, believe that the processes work properly should not be changed and new methods should not be sought. They take leadership role to maintain social unity and encourage those around them to increase efficiency. By doing this, they think that everything must be documented, and a certain set of rules must be established (Briggs-Myers & Myers, 1995).

Achieving goals and objectives is a source of motivation for ESTJs. They do not hesitate to take the actions they deem necessary to maximize efficiency. ESTJs in leadership roles set tough but realistic goals for the success of their teams and always appreciate hard-working people (Sukuvaara, 2015).

5. At Work

ESTJs, who are excellent at organizing, often prefer to take part in roles where they can make decisions and implement policies and procedures. ESTJs are known as profiles that can deliver work on time and as requested. ESTJs, who do not hesitate from taking responsibility, usually work very hard and expect their teams to work same (Hammer, 1993).

Ideal working environments for ESTJs are places where good and supportive relationships are established, expectations are clear, personal development is valued, atmosphere of trust is provided, the authority to decide and take action on their own projects, and where there are no disagreements and tensions (Erden, 2013).

References

Briggs-Myers, I., & Myers, P. B. (1995). Gifts differing: Understanding personality type.

Chauhan, S. P., & Chauhan, D. (2001). Are you aware how your personality type affects your behaviour? Global Business Review, 2(2), 289-304.

Erden, H. İ. (2013). Tüm Yönleriyle Meslek Seçimi. İstanbul: Beyaz Yayınları.

Hammer, A. L. (1993). Introduction to type and careers. CPP.

Kroeger, O., & Thuesen, J. M. (2013). Type talk: The 16 personality types that determine how we live, love, and work. Dell.

Sukuvaara, S. (2015). The relationship between personality and motivation.