The Portrait of the Teacher Idealist (eNFj) - The Sage
ENFJs are lively and enthusiastic facilitators who apply warmth and vision to helping people and meeting their needs. They are aware of people's aspirations and develop plans of action to make those aspirations into reality. They like organization and closure. They are at their best facilitating situations that require interpersonal sensitivity. ENFJs are tolerant and appreciative of others, seeking involvement with them in life's tasks. They are able communicators who are liberal in showing appreciation for others.
Many ENFJs take their religious and community values seriously and want others to do the same. Loyalty, commitment, and responsibility are important values to ENFJs, even as children. They often settle into organizations that have a values orientation, or they will find a spot in an organization that is centered on values or people's need. ENFJs make responsible spouses, employees, and community members. Because most ENFJs enjoy public speaking and seem to have a way with words, they are often asked to present the position of the groups to which they belong.
Some ENFJs report that at mid-life they seek situations for themselves where it is possible for them to turn inward. This often takes a structured form such as meditation, journaling, or in some cases even career changes.
In retirement, they are likely to want to settle geographically in an area where they have close personal relationships and/or close personal ties to a specific organization. The relationships and values that are imprtant to the ENFJ become even more so in their retirement. Many ENFJs participate in voluntary service work in retirement.
Leading
The ENFJ puts relationships and responsibilities before personal leisure. Their time can be imposed upon easily; however, they need to guard against excessive responsiveness to avoid reaching overload.
They particularly enjoy reading novels and seeing movies in order to see how the characters play out the life issues and questions presented in the story; it gives them an opportunity to see how others live and get along. They enjoy discussing their reading and may join book groups in order to do that. They like going to movies and plays with others and like to comment on the plot characterization. They are close observers of others' behavior.
Many ENFJs join religious or community-oriented groups whose focus is to work for better understanding between people. ENFJs like discussion and an opportunity to talk about values and philosophical topics. Many do not like activities in which there is a great deal of competition or in which someone or something could be hurt.
Loving
For the ENFJ, love means flowers, poetry, candlelight dinners --- in other words, romance with a capital R. When they first fall in love, they fall in love with an ideal perspective of what the relationship will be, and they fall deeply, head over heels. ENFJs value commitment and loyalty, and look for it from their partner. They typically enjoy activities with their partners that allow them to discuss the relationship and focus on what each person truly believes. When commitments are broken, ENFJs become upset because they see the breakup as a personal reflection on them and because they have idealized the relationship. Since they are willing to put the time and effort into the relationship, they expect it will continue on as it was from the very start. Relationships have their ups and downs; the downs, however, are particularly hard on the ENFJ, who does not manage disharmony well.
When scorned, ENFJs may be resentful, spiteful, and deeply hurt. Because they are acutely aware of emotional matters they take the breakup of a relationship especially hard. They are willing to discuss the ending of the relationship with only a few others because they feel a sense of blame and shame for the relationship not working out
Working
ENFJs focused on the organization's ideals and operate within those ideals. They focus on how organizations should treat people and communicate these values to others. They enjoy leading and facilitating teams, and like to bring matters to mutually beneficial conclusions.
ENFJs prefer a work setting that contains individuals focused on changing things for the betterment of others. They like an environment that is people oriented, supportive, and organized. They do their best when there is a spirit of harmony, with encouragement given for self-expression. And they like their work to be settled and orderly, but not so much so that it is dull, quiet, unchanging, or unchallenging.
The ENFJ organizing style is to plan around the particular value or ideal and to supply the necessary energy toward its achievement or implementation. In the accomplishment of the goal, ENFJs will look at the people available and will assign tasks based on who needs the experience, the exposure, or the development. To a lesser degree, they will assign the task based on who needs the experience, the exposure, or the development. To a lesser degree, they will assign the task based purely on competency, because ENFJs feel it is more important to help others grow and develop new skills. If others have a particular deadline that needs to be met, the ENFJ will work to meet that deadline so that the other person will be happy.
ENFJs prefer occupations that reflect their ideals and that promote harmonious relationships with others. They tend to be attracted to occupation with a service orientation. They generally follow policies and procedures as long as those procedures are compatible with people's needs. They prefer things to be organized and decided rather than haphazard.
Some occupations seem to be more attractive to ENFJs: actor, clergy, consultant, counselor and therapist, designer, home economist, musician, religious worker, teacher, writer, and other occupations that allow them to be of service to others.
The Teachers are found in no more than 2 or 3 percent of the population. They like to have things settled and arranged. They prefer to plan both work and social engagements ahead of time and tend to be absolutely reliable in honoring these commitments. At the same time, Teachers are very much at home in complex situations which require the juggling of much data with little pre-planning. An experienced Teacher group leader can dream up, effortlessly, and almost endlessly, activities for groups to engage in, and stimulating roles for members of the group to play. In some Teachers, inspired by the responsiveness of their students or followers, this can amount to genius which other types find hard to emulate. Such ability to preside without planning reminds us somewhat of an Provider, but the latter acts more as a master of ceremonies than as a leader of groups. Providers are natural hosts and hostesses, making sure that each guest is well looked after at social gatherings, or that the right things are expressed on traditional occasions, such as weddings, funerals, graduations, and the like. In much the same way, Teachers value harmonious human relations about all else, can handle people with charm and concern, and are usually popular wherever they are. But Teachers are not so much social as educational leaders, interested primarily in the personal growth and development of others, and less in attending to their social needs.
