ENTJs are typically goal-driven and ambitious, making them ideal candidates for a range of leadership roles. They are strategic leaders whose assertive and outgoing nature allows them to excel at motivating a team. Truity’s Personality Type and Career Achievement Study indicates that ENTJs are more likely to be found in leadership positions than other personality types, with the highest average number of employees reporting to them. These individuals are often attracted to leadership roles and tend to rise into these positions as others recognize their leadership skills.

For businesses looking to capitalize on the strengths of this personality type, there are a number of steps you can take to make your workplace more appealing to ENTJs. This includes creating a performance-based company culture, offering training opportunities and providing a clear route for professional growth. By making small changes to your company culture, you can attract and retain the most capable individuals and ENTJs in particular, so your business can start benefiting from this determined and charismatic type.

Read on for our top tips to attract more ENTJ candidates to your firm.

1)    Create a performance-based culture

Many individuals thrive in performance-based company cultures where they have a clear objective and goals to work towards. This is especially true for those with an ENTJ personality as these types need to feel that they have a definitive purpose. When these individuals know what they’re working towards, they’ll be organized, productive and bring the rest of the team along with them.

One of the vital aspects of a performance-based culture is having transparent metrics from which managers can track and monitor employee growth. This includes assessing employee efficiency, the quality of their work and setting them individual goals. These metrics allow ENTJ candidates to know what they are working towards and how they’ll be judged. Crucially, it also gives them individual tasks to fulfill. By introducing these changes to your company, you can help to attract and retain more ENTJ candidates for leadership roles.

2) Set targets

One of the key ways to create a high-performance environment is to set clear targets for your employees. ENTJs work best when they have a fixed goal so it’s critical that you give them something to strive for. This plays to their personal strengths, as well as helping you to get the most out of all your employees.

In the interview stage, ask candidates what their personal goals are and consider how you can implement them into your target strategy. Similarly, sit down with your existing employees and find out what their individual goals are. In doing so, you will be able to plan and set targets that are relevant to your team, helping them to achieve their personal goals, whilst also improving the overall productivity of your company.

3) Allow independence

Natural leaders crave responsibility and the ability to make their own decisions. If they’re in a corporate structure where their every action has to be approved by a higher up, they will go mad. ENTJs are excellent communicators and they excel at managing others and making decisions in order to achieve company goals as effectively as possible. It doesn't make sense to hinder these abilities with overly restrictive rules and barriers. To capitalize on ENTJ managers, let them take the lead.

This includes giving ENTJs an opportunity to have their ideas heard. These individuals are visionaries and they’re often outstanding corporate strategists, finding it easy to create a clear plan for achieving their goals. By providing ENTJs with a space where they can share their ideas with upper management, you can tap into the enterprising and strategizing side of their personality.

4) Offer regular feedback

That’s not to say that you should just leave ENTJs to their own devices - ENTJs still need guidance in the workplace. This personality type gains a lot from criticism and feedback, using it to inform and improve how they approach challenges in the future. Their sociable side also thrives on frequent validation from the people around them. Building a system of regular performance reviews will help you to create a satisfying work environment for ENTJ individuals.

All employees can benefit from in-depth and structured review sessions and ENTJs are no exception. Whilst they make exceptional leaders, they also need to have someone to provide them with feedback to keep them on track. Rational review sessions are most effective; they don't appreciate overly sensitive or emotional sentiments creeping in. By scheduling review meetings, you can ensure that you maintain control, nipping bad behavior in the bud, whilst continuing to give ENTJs autonomy for everyday decision-making.

5) Minimize admin

Candidates with ENTJ personalities make excellent team leaders. However, they do have professional weaknesses and patience is certainly one of them. These individuals are intelligent and highly effective at leading a team but they can’t cope with repetitive, mindless tasks. With this in mind, wherever possible it is best to minimize the amount of admin that ENTJs are required to do.

Any ENTJ considering your company will be extremely excited by the idea of fewer administrative tasks. Creating a leadership position in which someone else manages the admin will be a big plus to potential employees. Of course, it’s not feasible to eliminate administrative tasks completely but limiting this aspect of the role is an easy way to keep ENTJ employees happy. In doing so, you can free them up to focus on the big picture and do what they do best - hitting targets and driving change.

6) Recommend training options

ENTJ individuals pursue their goals in a determined and focused way, doing everything in their power to achieve their aims as efficiently as possible. This is where regular training opportunities can also attract top ENTJ candidates to your firm. Demonstrating the potential for professional growth through options for training can help you to hook hyper-motivated candidates who are eager to prove their abilities.

By providing ambitious employees the chance to expand their current skill set and gain vital training in a new discipline, you will immediately make your business stand out. Younger generations are more interested than ever in employee benefits that go beyond compensation and training is one of them. ENTJs are always eager to learn and implement their new skills in the workplace. Be warned though, pithy training exercises designed to fill time rather than generate change will not be tolerated; one of the fastest ways to lose an ENTJ employee is to make them feel as though they’re wasting their time.

7) Provide opportunities for growth

The most important takeaway for attracting ENTJ candidates is to offer a clear route to help them achieve their career goals. They need to know that what they’re doing is leading to something, be it a promotion, pay increase or some other professional benefit. High-potential employees benefit from having a clear development plan in place and if you can demonstrate that this is central to your business strategy, you can attract exceptional ENTJ candidates.

Opportunities for personal growth are a vital component of having a high-performance company culture, helping you to get the best out of your workers and give them all-important job satisfaction. Whilst rewards and incentives are a great way to motivate your workforce, for ENTJ individuals, concrete career advancement and increased responsibility is the way to go.

Attracting high-performing individuals

In order to attract and retain productive ENTJ individuals, you need to consider the ways your company monitors growth and performance for all your employees. This is important not only for hiring purposes but also for the overall success of your business. Implementing these changes, or revising them if they’re already in place, is a key way to encourage more top candidates into leadership roles and ensure continued development across your workforce, as well as long-term growth.

Elizabeth Harris
Elizabeth is a freelance writer and ghostwriter. She’s an anthropologist at heart and loves using social theory to get deeper into the topics she writes about. Born in the UK, Elizabeth has lived in Copenhagen, Frankfurt and Dubai before moving most recently to Budapest, Hungary. She’s an ENTJ with ENFJ leanings. Find out more about her work at bethharris.com