ENFJ - The Icon

ENFJs, also known as Ethical Intuitive Energisers (EIEs), are charismatic visionaries who unite people around emotionally resonant causes. With dominant Emotions and support from Telos, they craft powerful, long-lasting messages that shape public consciousness. They are not merely "nice" but deeply dramatic and symbolic, aiming to inspire change and evoke profound meaning. Often iconic, they excel at managing group mood and expressing passion through image and story.

ENFJ is defined by the following dichotomies:

  1. Energiser vs Integrator
  2. Sensory vs Intuitive
  3. Logical vs Ethical
  4. Rational vs Irrational
  5. Reductionist vs Holist
  6. Identifier vs Transformer
  7. Accepter vs Rejecter
  8. Clarifier vs Integrifier
  9. Determined vs Exacting
  10. Contrarian vs Obstinate
  11. Affirmer vs Denier
  12. Space-Locked vs Time-locked
  13. Sight-Locked vs Speech-Locked
  14. Thetic vs Antithetic
  15. Clockwise vs Anticlockwise

It forms the Beta quadra with ISTJ, ESTP and INFP.

It forms the Humanitarian club with INFP, INFJ and ENFP.

It forms the Obliging temperament with ESFJ, ENTJ and ESTJ.

It forms the Authenticity tournament with ESTP, INFJ and ISTP.

1. Emotions

ENFJs are best characterised by the bright and vibrant emotional states they experience and emit to others. For these types, the meaning of life is to feel, not merely to feel content, but to feel intensely and passionately. For them, there is no place for apathy, a lack of care or an absence of feeling. ENFJs need to communicate their emotions to others through authentic self-expression, raising the surrounding emotional state by drawing people's attention to how they feel. The mood expressed is often heightened, perhaps to the dramatic, with the intent that this be the clearest, least ambiguous sign of their own emotional state. For this reason, ENFJs may dislike displays from others that they think are 'shallow' or 'fake', and even when acting themselves, may see the need to believe or become what they are expressing. With this comes the natural expectation that others will partake in the feeling, the mood growing to encompass all around them, whether joy, despair or rage. Often, ENFJs assess their value through the impressions they have made on others and may sometimes create an image or persona of themselves to project to the people around them, looking to have that persona validated by those around them. 


2. Time

Emotionality for the ENFJ has an ascetic, otherworldly nature, often aiming at the sublime, unusual and profound to encourage action for goals in the long term. They may express themselves in tones of inevitability, with something always going to happen, and may frequently have insights or hunches which come true despite all the odds. Rather than show nice, happy emotions, the ENFJ normally wants a deeper, more profound and authentic message to be displayed to those around them. In the crafting of this message, or the construction of a certain persona, image or desirable lifestyle, the ENFJ may give a great deal of thought, and spend time in their imagination, planning how something will be received and whether it will lead to the effect they wish to bring about, whether it is something that can be maintained over time. ENFJs may fervently desire to belong to some group or circle, but such a circle will often have to have a sense of exclusivity to it, where only those on some higher or more important path are bestowed access.


3. Pragmatism

The ENFJ is aware of the need to be competent and productive in their different tasks. They recognise that they need to show to others an ability to get things

done properly and an awareness of the facts behind issues they are addressing. Because of this, ENFJs can be productive organisers, with an ability to not

just get people working together but to also make sure they are working effectively for any goal. However, ENFJs prefer not to focus on just the facts

for the sake of facts, knowing that they can be boring or unappealing to their potential audience. Instead, ENFJs prefer to play on sentiment and convey not

merely the informative information, but the emotion that gives people the drive to act and the will to bring about meaningful change in the world. ENFJs tend

to tire of dry facts and procedural steps, preferring not to have to continuously research into improving themselves and their methods. Instead,

they desire clarity in an unambiguous framework or ideology, setting out a perfectly consistent order that needs no further improvement.


4. Senses

ENFJs tend to possess a fundamental discontent with the world around them and a need to avoid things that seem mundane or trivial. ENFJs want to live extraordinary lives with purpose and meaning and will quickly feel depressed in carrying out the humdrum of daily maintenance. The emotions they like to synthesise are rarely comfortable or restricted to the pleasant, resulting in these types often having a certain instability. Their passions may have them take things to the extreme, causing some ENFJs to suffer mentally or physically. Indeed, pain and the darkness are all part of emotional authenticity, and often such dramatic intensity can wear away at their temporal, physical shells. Furthermore, details and the little things can remain a constant thorn in the side of ENFJs when creating the perfect persona for people to admire them through. Some ENFJs may go to painful lengths to make themselves look like beautiful demigods. Others will reject aesthetic as shallow, setting a more unwashed example.


5. Laws

ENFJs tend to lack confidence in their reasoning, and so, when faced with an argument threatening their logic, they can often hype up the emotional rhetoric instead of properly addressing the points. The kaleidoscope of emotions and ideas in the ENFJ is hard to clearly express, often resulting in a sort of nonsensical 'mush'. While delivering rousing, thought-provoking messages to people, their actions may be inconsistent with their arguments, with some expressions seeming to contradict what was previously said. Furthermore, in their desire to meaningfully reach out to anyone and everyone, the consistency of their ideology, what is important and what is of lower priority, may be forgotten. Regarding order and chaos, the ENFJ represents a paradox. On one hand, the ENFJ loves their freedom and will not be subjected to the rules of another against their will. On the other hand, ENFJs can be very appreciative of someone consistently and authoritatively stamping their structured priorities onto reality, bringing a much-needed signal to the noise. Sometimes, the creation of different personae and identification with people's reactions to those personae can lead the ENFJ to have a poor awareness of who they really are. They can greatly appreciate a no-nonsense confrontation in impermeable logic to help iron out their identities and what they stand for in absolute, unquestionable clarity.


6. Force

Unstable in their energy levels, an ENFJ may cycle between periods of overactive, restless impatience and paralysing hesitancy or doubt. The emotions given off by an ENFJ may be pleasant if deemed appropriate, but more often, there is a harsher edge that seeks to inspire more intense emotions in other individuals. ENFJs are willing to give out messages that may shock or anger people if that is the mood they feel will lead to greater passion in others. This can manifest in the belief that positive change is best brought out through rebellion or subversive action against an oppressor. When perceiving a threat, ENFJs are usually able to defend themselves and their friends with short bursts of vehemence. However, while this may scare off some people, they cannot hold out against all threats and may take on someone more formidable than they can handle. ENFJs respect strength and aspire to be seen as strong and powerful, although they lack the single-minded determination of other types. As a result, they often try to look the part if they cannot be the part, dressing to impress and, when financially successful, trying to demonstrate their elevated status to others through displays of wealth. Occasionally, it can also make them perceive challenges to their ideology as threats to be responded to aggressively, often leading to overreactions in scenarios of conflict.


7. Relations

Despite being largely carried by emotional investment, ENFJs place a clear priority on the expression of the emotional states they are currently undergoing, with far less attention given to more stable, consistent attitudes towards people and things. When taken up by anger, the ENFJ will want to express this with unequivocal clarity against the person who angered them, even if this person may be a very close or dear friend. Similarly, they have little qualm being warm and magnanimous to strangers if that is the mood they want to convey. Frequently the dramatic emotions they experience are more important than the nature of the relationship they have with another. Rather than judge people as 'good' or 'bad', the ENFJ is far more interested in the euphoria they feel around people and being subjected to an overly dry or boring person can bring about as intense a negative reaction as if someone had drowned the cat. Although able to keep close relationships with others, ENFJs are often more likely to characterise people in terms of circles of identity, rather than in terms of the individuals making up that circle.


8. Ideas

Often, ENFJs can be the zany generators of new ideas, concepts and perspectives. In many ways, they are seen as eclectic, creative visionaries bringing about novel changes in vogue, excitedly charging after the right opportunity if it presents itself. Able to explore a broad range of influences, they can then synthesise this into a singular enduring image to convey. They are likely to place themselves in environments of creative novelty, enjoying the forward-thinking quality of such an atmosphere and the potential for great change to come from it. However, any ideas or tangents that are not in line with their sense of greater purpose are clearly given as silly distractions, rather than something to seriously spend time on. ENFJs demand that people are completely and enthusiastically united on a task and tend to not appreciate people leaving the general direction on their own explorations. When something is explained to them in a purely theoretical or speculative manner, they may be frustrated by its lack of straightforwardness, eschewing ambiguity in favour for absolute clarity.

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