"ENFJ" Themes and Relationships

By Linda V. Berens Ph.D. and Dario Nardi Ph.D.

Personality Type:    ENFJ - Envisioner Mentor
Temperament:   Catalyst (NF)
Interaction Style*:    In-Charge
Likely Social Style: Driver

How to use this Personality Type Description

ENFJ Snapshot

  • Theme is mentoring, leading people to achieve their potential and become more of who they are.
  • Talents lie in empathizing with profound interpersonal insight and in influencing others to learn, grow, and develop.
  • Lead using their exceptional communication skills, enthusiasm, and warmth to gain cooperation toward meeting the ideals they hold for the individual or the organization.
  • Catalysts who draw out the best in others.
  • Thrive on empathic connections.
  • Frequently called on to help others with personal problems.

Themes and Relationships
for each Personality Type
by Linda V. Berens, Ph.D.
and Dario Nardi, Ph.D.**
ISTJ

 

ENFJ Theme

For Envisioner Mentors, life is a process of succeeding at relationships. There can never be enough truly empathic relationships to foster mutual growth. They enjoy the creative process in many forms and often bring a fresh view to projects they enthusiastically work on. Realizing dreams—their own and others’— is what life is all about. To not have dreams to manifest and a chance to communicate and share values is to live a life with no meaning and no purpose, a fate worse than death.

For them, all of life is about the interpersonal, and they constantly seek opportunities to grow together through relationships. There are times when they value logical explanations. Having realizations that foster development and help them understand why the world is the way it is helps them lead a purposeful life. Learning from relationships is important and occasionally painful.



Their thought processes tend to be integrative and global as they seek to find ways to help others know themselves and their life’s mission. Heeding the call to a life work or mission is tremendously important to them, and they are readily available to others to help reveal to them their unique purpose. Sometimes they find themselves knowing what they do not want to know, yet to shut off their empathic knowing is to shut off a vital life force.

In the interpersonal realm, they often find that their ease in connecting with others becomes a hindrance to their own well-being as they get lost in the relationship and lose sight of their own identity until they learn to set boundaries. They often use their intuitive intellect to reconcile the past and the future as they seek to understand the meaning and significance of life events.

With such a talent for seeing potential in others and a focus on realizing that potential, they often find living in the present difficult. By the time an event happens, they have already lived it.

ENFJ Relationships

For Envisioner Mentors, relationships are about connecting. Life is all about relating empathically, and people need lots of attention and commitment. Nurturing relationships is what they live for. There must be a sense of connection, to feel known, understood, needed, reassured, and praised. They often find themselves acting informally as counselors, even if that is not their profession. And that fulfills their daily dose of connection. The downside is they can become overburdened with others’ problems. They invest a lot in all their relationships, work or personal, creating a standard others may not be able to return. If forgiveness, honesty, and consideration are not present, they work to bring them in. Without them, a relationship is not worthwhile. For anything to work with a person, the relationship has to work. When there is conflict, problems will have to be talked about and healed before going on. They tend to be open and sharing, and they expect others to self-disclose, especially in the interest of resolving issues. They have a way of getting others to feel at ease and open up.

In their close relationships, they put a lot of energy into nurturing the relationship. There is a constant search for the ideal relationship where there is both friendship and romance with someone they can share everything with, especially meaning and purpose. Sometimes they have a hard time separating from their ideal and objectivity eludes them. The more abrupt style of others often leads to hurt feelings, which they nurse internally. Their style is to easily communicate affection and appreciation with just the right message. Too much time alone leaves them needy, yet they need time to reflect on their own meaning and purpose too.

This concludes "Themes and Relationships for ENFJ,"
A Personality Type Description.

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**The Personality Type Description shown above is wholly owned and copyrighted by the authors Linda V. Berens Ph.D. and Dario Nardi Ph.D. and is used herein with their permission.

For a complete set of Personality Type Descriptions by Linda V. Berens and Dario Nardi please see: "The 16 Sixteen Personality Types - Descriptions for Self-Discovery"

*Interaction Styles as developed by Linda Berens, is a powerful lens with which to better understand people. For a complete understanding of Interaction Styles see:
"Understanding Yourself and Others, An Introduction to Interaction Styles"

Practitioners, Organizational Development Consultants, HR Managers, Leadership and Teamwork Trainers,
click here for professional level training by Linda Berens in:
Interaction Styles, Temperament, and Personality Type