It's true that a challenge can be interesting - but a challenge doesn't have to be a person. Lifting a heavy weight, running across hilly terain, completing a hard mathematical derivation - all of these provide that challenge and are just as good as competing against a person. In fact they are better, because a weight doesn't get upset when I beat it - a person just might.
Very true which is why as an adult I tend to try to keep my competitions friendly and between people who enjoy it. Apparently there are a lot of jerk ENTJs from the sound of it.
That is perhaps one of the differences between INTJs and ENTJs - we're not quite as oblivious to over peoples feelings, despite what our reputation might suggest!
Too true!
ENTJ
1. Thinking
2. Intuition
3. Sensing
4. Feeling
INTJ
1. Intuition
2. Thinking
3. Feeling
4. Sensing
I think that is part of what annoys me about competitive people. Their confrontational stance usually appears so pointless to me. They take an oppositional stance just for the pleasure of it. I'm trying to complete something, and they have chosen to get in my way for no reason except their own pleasure. It strikes me as pretty much the definition of being an asshole. Under such circumstances, the desire the grind them into the dirt can become personal, but it's not a desire to beat them so much as to punish them for such unpleasant behaviour.
Don't get me wrong. If someone has a genuine object to the way a given task is being carried out, I don't mind. Even if I disagre with them, I still see the good intentions behind what they are doing. We are both trying to assure the successful completion of the task. For that, I have much more patients.
I agree with you totally in the bold areas above.
I guess that for ENTJs we have to learn that not everyone enjoys the competition since Fe is our weakest function, it just doesn't come naturally. We especially don't understand it in the arenas of sports or business since this is naturally a competitive undertaking in the first place.
I've never gone out of my way to sabotage somenone's effort. I am always doing what's best for the company and will bend over backwards to give everything to the team no matter how it may hurt me in the end. I learned from my ENTJ dad to take the job no one else wants so that they feel good about not having the worst job and they respect you as a leader for doing what no one else wanted to do. I am never purposely trying to hurt anyone. I've learned that the best results come from happy co-workers.
Now, I have been known to play devil's advocate
in an argument simply to expand and strengthen my own point of view or to see how researched and/or logical the other persons point of view really is. It took me a long time to reazlize that most people see a challenge to their opinion as an act of war, or my arguing as pointless. For an ENTJ it is merely an act of clarification or figuring out the soundness of an idea. I've had to train myself to recognize the signs that I'm offending people. The truth is that we ENTJs so rarely get offended (I've told people that they actually have to be blunt and call me an asshole if they want to be offensive, but in the end I'm usually so busy analyzing why they might be feeling angry that I still don't take it personally.)
I also feel that if someone is in a leadership position they should not take it personally if an employee sees a problem and has a practical solution. I find it interesting that when there has been unfair leadership and the co-workers needed a champion they are quick to jump behind my back and let me take the brunt of the blows, because once again, I'm not afraid of challenging the powers that be if it means solving a problem that every one else is too chicken to confront.
