[Worth Lessemo]

I wanted to start a thread to discuss INTJ leadership.

(I personally find myself to be optimal (less wanting to stab anyone) when I'm in control, but that control often alienates others at times. Or so I'm told, I don't really believe it though.)

I'm attending some workshops at my university on leadership next week, so I thought I'd get some ideas beforehand. It leads to a certificate, and I expect some of them to be somewhat professional and not terrible. (Then again, I am sceptical.)

Anyway please talk anything really. Except it has to be this, or else. Talk away, anything. This please:

Personal Leadership;
Definitions
Values or Visions
Self Management
Presentation
Communication

Team;
Group development and team building
Group facilitation
Managing creative conflict
Inspiring change in stupid people (my wording)
Engaging personality and strengths

Community;
How do you relate value to your community
Global citizen or global responsibilities
Overarching (visionary) responsibilities

Organizational;
Ethical leadership
Organizing in itself
Emotional intelligence
Social entrepreneurship (I had to google it because I had no clue)
Event management

 

[lilysocks]

Bleagh. The whole trouble (for me) with thinking about 'group leadership' is I can make a good start at it . . . but what if I lose interest and turn on them all halfway through? Earthlings are only interesting to me for short bursts, and then I become a bit cold and psychotic on them. I kind of attract 'leadees', but the idea of permanent, official leadership makes me feel all sweaty and claustrophobic. This looks awfully touchy-feely to me, but oh well.

Here goes:

Personal Leadership; Don't know what they mean. Leading myself? Leading others one-on-one?
Definitions: See above.
Values or Visions I believe fiercely that anyone taking a job has an a priori right to all the tools, resources and knowledge they need in order to do a good job. That's about it. But fiercely. Did I mention fierceness yet?
Self Management Next question.
Presentation Of what?
Communication Case in point - I don't get what you/they want here - my take? my talents at it? I'm good at communicating. Great problem-identifier too. See Values and Visions, above.

Team;
Group development and team building Shoot. Me. Now. Yeahyeah, there's a value in it. I know.
Group facilitation Done that. It goes with being quick to see a) big pictures and b) unconventional niches/connections therein. I'm good at causing cross-pollination within a group by bringing the right people together to solve a problem.
Managing creative conflict Mmmmmnn. . . yeah . . . . but I always hit a threshold where I'm sick of them all and want to go back to my desk.
Inspiring change in stupid people (my wording) This sounds insanely awful. I CLEARLY distinguish 'stupid' from 'unequipped' though. And I do not by-god want to know a word about anyone's personal feelings or lives.
Engaging personality and strengths Yeah, up to a point. At first it makes me feel helpful and constructive and efficient, which is just great. Then comes Phase II in which I start to feel icky and unethical and mad-scientist-ish, and I want to drop them all and let them just return to the state in which nature made them.

Community;
How do you relate value to your community Sorry? Was that English?
Global citizen or global responsibilities Be civilized. Have manners. Contribute. Tilt the planet a bit. Be carbon-neutral in a human-beings - not a save-the-fucking-whales - kind of sense.
Overarching (visionary) responsibilities Already said this one.


Organizational; Oh god, I dunno. Can I just go home now?
Ethical leadership
Organizing in itself
Emotional intelligence
Social entrepreneurship (I had to google it because I had no clue)
Event management


Good luck with it anyway.

 

[bluekitdon]

I believe intj's can be truly exceptional leaders. Some homework is in order though, too much for a post really. Here are some great books.

5 levels of leadership by Maxwell
Collins work such as built to last, good to great, etc.
Covey's work on habits of successful people.

 

[Worth Lessemo]

I believe intj's can be truly exceptional leaders. Some homework is in order though, too much for a post really. Here are some great books.

5 levels of leadership by Maxwell
Collins work such as built to last, good to great, etc.
Covey's work on habits of successful people.

Well I hope you come back to post a bigger post.

I am pretty sceptical of homework for something semi-personal, although it does help I bet on some technical stuff, but what's central is usually individuation and reflection. At least, I hope everyone would be able to make a powerpoint already.

I've heard of Covey, he seems like a tit, but if you say so I might try him out.

 

[Worth Lessemo]

Bleagh. The whole trouble (for me) with thinking about 'group leadership' is I can make a good start at it . . . but what if I lose interest and turn on them all halfway through? Earthlings are only interesting to me for short bursts, and then I become a bit cold and psychotic on them. I kind of attract 'leadees', but the idea of permanent, official leadership makes me feel all sweaty and claustrophobic. This looks awfully touchy-feely to me, but oh well.

Here goes:

Personal Leadership; Don't know what they mean. Leading myself? Leading others one-on-one?
Definitions: See above.
Values or Visions I believe fiercely that anyone taking a job has an a priori right to all the tools, resources and knowledge they need in order to do a good job. That's about it. But fiercely. Did I mention fierceness yet?
Self Management Next question.
Presentation Of what?
Communication Case in point - I don't get what you/they want here - my take? my talents at it? I'm good at communicating. Great problem-identifier too. See Values and Visions, above.

Team;
Group development and team building Shoot. Me. Now. Yeahyeah, there's a value in it. I know.
Group facilitation Done that. It goes with being quick to see a) big pictures and b) unconventional niches/connections therein. I'm good at causing cross-pollination within a group by bringing the right people together to solve a problem.
Managing creative conflict Mmmmmnn. . . yeah . . . . but I always hit a threshold where I'm sick of them all and want to go back to my desk.
Inspiring change in stupid people (my wording) This sounds insanely awful. I CLEARLY distinguish 'stupid' from 'unequipped' though. And I do not by-god want to know a word about anyone's personal feelings or lives.
Engaging personality and strengths Yeah, up to a point. At first it makes me feel helpful and constructive and efficient, which is just great. Then comes Phase II in which I start to feel icky and unethical and mad-scientist-ish, and I want to drop them all and let them just return to the state in which nature made them.

Community;
How do you relate value to your community Sorry? Was that English?
Global citizen or global responsibilities Be civilized. Have manners. Contribute. Tilt the planet a bit. Be carbon-neutral in a human-beings - not a save-the-fucking-whales - kind of sense.
Overarching (visionary) responsibilities Already said this one.


Organizational; Oh god, I dunno. Can I just go home now?
Ethical leadership
Organizing in itself
Emotional intelligence
Social entrepreneurship (I had to google it because I had no clue)
Event management


Good luck with it anyway.

Lol Me too.

And you didn't need to answer all of it! No wonder there's some suicide references in your response. I'd want to kill myself too.

 

[mr. rozay]

soo many questions.

All I gotta say is, I firmly believe in a leadership where everyone is their own leader, and the most competent leads. lol I guess its more of a wolf pack mentality. Every person is their own lone-wolf, but when an objective needs to be done, teamwork comes in the picture. Democracy. If no progress is being done during the process of decision, the most competent must lead and we should follow his vision and goals until a decision can be made. Competent is someone who thinks for the pack, and has no heart of self gain.

The metaphorical sheep/Shepard leadership is not effective in my book. Your group is limited to the Shepard's competence, and wherever the shepard is directing you.

A friend of mine who was a former director had my approach. He hired people that were smarter than him. These people would always give him ideas and he would just tame the herd. Its like they went their own direction and he just made sure everybody behaved. His mentality was, as long as progress is being made, then I'm open to whatever direction it may lead. (he of course is extremely smart himself, and everyone he hired was very intelligent. So his style wasn't chaotic in any way.)

 

[bluekitdon]

Well I hope you come back to post a bigger post.

I am pretty sceptical of homework for something semi-personal, although it does help I bet on some technical stuff, but what's central is usually individuation and reflection. At least, I hope everyone would be able to make a powerpoint already.

I've heard of Covey, he seems like a tit, but if you say so I might try him out.

The first book I listed, five levels by Maxwell is probably the best I've found on leadership. I've been in some type of leadership role for the last 25 years or so. The best investment you can make is in yourself, just offering some suggestions of material I found helpful. Good luck on your research.

 

[Worth Lessemo]

@ rozy

Sounds like my kind of person. I think Generation x really messed up on their own idea of liberalism by tending to hire people they knew rather than seeking outside of their own social circle or norms. Not saying our generation would be any better for sure, but it makes a huge difference to have a diverse distribution of highly competent people picked, then streamed through, from outside one's own idiom. I'm beginning to see it as a bottom line. I find subjective ethics in the workplace make me nervous, I'd rather think that someone hired me because there was something left to be known, and was sought objectively. Otherwise work becomes a cult!

@ bluekitdon

Agreed. Thank you.

 

[dingo]

I try to separate my thinking on leadership from my thinking on leadership literature and studies. I'm in an Intro to Leadership Studies class right now because it's required for my program, but to be honest I'm quite ambivalent towards leadership literature. To me it's no better than self-help literature. It's written for (and, I would guess, by) rather hard-nosed people, who are less interested in actually studying the concepts and ethics of leadership, and just want to get things done. The principles tend to be extremely simple, yet the authors make a lot of assumptions, requiring one to read a lot of leadership books to get anything close to a holistic view of leadership.

I am of the view that an INTJ is a natural leader in many different circumstances. I've taken big strides in overcoming my fear of authority, and in fact people rarely respond negatively to my laser-focused, authoritarian way of directing people. I think people (including myself) want to be lead.

 

[Worth Lessemo]

I try to separate my thinking on leadership from my thinking on leadership literature and studies. I'm in an Intro to Leadership Studies class right now because it's required for my program, but to be honest I'm quite ambivalent towards leadership literature. To me it's no better than self-help literature. It's written for (and, I would guess, by) rather hard-nosed people, who are less interested in actually studying the concepts and ethics of leadership, and just want to get things done. The principles tend to be extremely simple, yet the authors make a lot of assumptions, requiring one to read a lot of leadership books to get anything close to a holistic view of leadership.

I am of the view that an INTJ is a natural leader in many different circumstances. I've taken big strides in overcoming my fear of authority, and in fact people rarely respond negatively to my laser-focused, authoritarian way of directing people. I think people (including myself) want to be lead.

Yea, I got some opinions from two INTPs I know and it was pretty similar along the lines of "does leadership even exist and how is it different, within the supposition of capitalism, from management?" and for them, without any awareness of the conceptual mishaps, there isn't really a point. Continuing under that guise is harmful, flamboyantly wrong, and often too comfortable with the paradigm that Gen x took to ruin the world.

I agree with them, but there is something so awesome about ignoring all the politics and seeking confidence or self esteem anyway. (I know my INTP would dart back saying, hey, thats not leadership. It's an ethic. Leadership doesn't exist, it's just a spin off.) But I enjoy the natural leadership that has emerged as an INTJ, I've been a lot better off giving myself higher amounts of authority in my own life.

I have a funny story about leadership literature. I bought some business books last terms and accidently left them in the living room which was a terrible idea because my super genius roommate has philosophers, psych majors, and sociology majors over all the time. (I knew the books kind of meh, but I still found them useful.) Anyway one night they were laughing hysterically, which was fine, but it just wouldn't stop... so I came out of my room and discovered they had actually read the books and were making fun of them as they caught really obvious liberal or capitalistic assumptions. Each chapter title had been a source of pissing one's self from laughing so hard.

There are some very intelligent nihilists out there. I'd like to picture myself leading them out of their own intellectual byproduct, but it would probably end up bad. Like a mass emo suicide, or a fight club. Ha!

 

[Worth Lessemo]

Oh the spiralling madness of corporate leadership

(I think Brad Pitt and Eward Norton depict characters trying to find masculinity/leadership in a ENTP and INTx framework. Their leadership/masculinity ends up as a cultural critique that destroys the world's financial institutions, which in a way is enslaving men to a corporate modality. The cultural critique really captures the easy-nihilism that comes with the new era.)

 

[lilysocks]

Otherwise work becomes a cult!

I've always sort of occupied the Mercutio spot, sitting off on the sidelines and sniping, kind of corrective-factor devil's-advocate role. I don't so much lead OR rebel; I just seem to sort of cause uprisings to coalesce around me. However.

A couple of years ago I found myself in this situation where my own personal ethics kept driving me to step up. It was a classic INTJ case of 'no-one's leading anybody, but damn it, I just can't take all this pointless milling-around anymore.' I kind of set out quietly in my usual subversive style to empower the troops. By helping them towards what they needed to know, basically.

Team productivity and morale and all that good stuff took an incredible spike. The original 'ramp-up' time that I heard when I started there, of at least six months before anyone even began to be productive, dropped down to something more like three weeks. And the self-education ability, cross-pollination of knowledge, all that . . . it went through the roof. Hah, thought I, but then I discovered this sort of awful unwanted personality cult had coalesced behind me among the troops, along with all that. IT WAS NOT WHAT I MEANT, and I couldn't scrape the damned groupies off the soles of my shoes whatever I did. Even when they were all going around helping themselves and each other 90% of the time, god damn me if they weren't all still crediting me for what they were doing themselves, and/or referring every damned new person who cracked the door straight to me. It was like I set out to get it so that everyone in the whole group knew all the same things I did - deliberately trying to demystify the knowledge and the pathways towards it, you know. So that nobody would be 'special.' But it was like they absolutely had to have someone 'special' even if the pedestal was just a hollow construct. It made me feel almost a little bit crazy, after a while.

So now I'm slightly bitter and scarred by it all ;-)

 

[Scelerat]

I think the best way to approach the human side of leadership is to look into the Hertzberg model and Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In my experience the best workers are going to have a range of attributes, one of which is often ambition, neglecting to nurture this ambition and getting your workers to see that they have a future within the company in line with their ambitions will often lead to losing your best workers.

 

[Worth Lessemo]

I've always sort of occupied the Mercutio spot, sitting off on the sidelines and sniping, kind of corrective-factor devil's-advocate role. I don't so much lead OR rebel; I just seem to sort of cause uprisings to coalesce around me. However.

A couple of years ago I found myself in this situation where my own personal ethics kept driving me to step up. It was a classic INTJ case of 'no-one's leading anybody, but damn it, I just can't take all this pointless milling-around anymore.' I kind of set out quietly in my usual subversive style to empower the troops. By helping them towards what they needed to know, basically.

Team productivity and morale and all that good stuff took an incredible spike. The original 'ramp-up' time that I heard when I started there, of at least six months before anyone even began to be productive, dropped down to something more like three weeks. And the self-education ability, cross-pollination of knowledge, all that . . . it went through the roof. Hah, thought I, but then I discovered this sort of awful unwanted personality cult had coalesced behind me among the troops, along with all that. IT WAS NOT WHAT I MEANT, and I couldn't scrape the damned groupies off the soles of my shoes whatever I did. Even when they were all going around helping themselves and each other 90% of the time, god damn me if they weren't all still crediting me for what they were doing themselves, and/or referring every damned new person who cracked the door straight to me. It was like I set out to get it so that everyone in the whole group knew all the same things I did - deliberately trying to demystify the knowledge and the pathways towards it, you know. So that nobody would be 'special.' But it was like they absolutely had to have someone 'special' even if the pedestal was just a hollow construct. It made me feel almost a little bit crazy, after a while.

So now I'm slightly bitter and scarred by it all ;-)

Ha! I've done this before. It's like highschool all over again for me. Before I identified with my screen name Worthless Emo, I was more of an Emo Messiah; I was the reluctant leader of my social circle (a clique) and anywhere I went--I had an army-ready for me to snap my fingers and give them a mission. I became "special" and I had too much power/responsibility with my friendships, I was also left quite scarred by it.

Its definitely happened in the workplace too. I can be very enigmatic, usually through reluctance. In my experience it does improve utility, but its hard to contain that within the best interests of the workplace. It becomes the interests of whatever is "special" I guess. With me, people usually ended up being quite rebellious or militaristic in how they resonated with me. I'd like to think they were more effective, but I definitely wasn't proud of what I created in the examples that come to my mind.

Maybe we could call this the INTJ-version of the cult-workplace?

 

[Worth Lessemo]

I think the best way to approach the human side of leadership is to look into the Hertzberg model and Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In my experience the best workers are going to have a range of attributes, one of which is often ambition, neglecting to nurture this ambition and getting your workers to see that they have a future within the company in line with their ambitions will often lead to losing your best workers.

I think I understand your concept. In a lot of organizational and industrial psych, contrary to what most businesses funding research into productivity probably "want" to hear, treating people with emphasis on the value of what they are doing is the most important thing anyone can do to increase productivity. I think you're idea of ambition is compatible with this, although I worry that ambition transfers too many assumptions about capitalism and what success ought to be. Psych shouldn't transfer these assumptions into the results unless it's being applied, so any industrial psych that jumps into that without due caution will get itself into trouble later on as a theory.

(I don't think Maslow is much more than a tit, and the Hertzberg model is kind of crude. There is so much more out there that needs to overlap, like preference psychology and happiness psychology. Opinion and value formation! Economic psychology and industrial psych on things like laziness, procrastination, and impulsiveness. It makes me so angry because there are tons of psychology spin-off books which fail to relate to externals or other research, as well as accounting for assumptions made about capitalism and success.)

Weee!

 

[Worth Lessemo]

Here's some good'ol INT? testosterone.

Maybe I'm being a little barbaric on assuming testosterone equals leadership, but I think the scene shows some Fi-component with the jealously over the girl which brings out a lot of energy.

 

[lilysocks]

I became "special" and I had too much power/responsibility with my friendships, I was also left quite scarred by it.

I didn't like it at all. And it confused me too. Gave me a whole other facet of the imposter complex to worry about, because I couldn't even frame the issue to myself without words like 'charisma' getting in there. Words I didn't even like using, forget all about actually trying to sum myself up for and assess how much of the stuff I supposedly had.

I don't know how other more at-ease 'leader' types deal with this. It would be simple but wrong to make the sweeping statement that all 'personality leaders' are just popularity whores, but it seems to be a problem for me. I don't look to be 'liked' - I really think that I don't. But I guess in my own paradigm of the world, I can't figure out why anyone would follow anyone unless there was some level of genuine ideological buy-in to justify it. So (thinking out loud, painfully slowly) I guess I went around manifesting my own ethos at other people since that's the only way I'd afford anyone else enough credibility to let them tell me what to do - I'd want them to show me their cards. I actually think it's a death spiral waiting to happen, in hindsight. I was quite upset for a while that I just didn't foresee the way it was going to go. Predicting that just seemed so contemptuous of the people involved ;-) I wanted to think they were better, more independent, than that.

I guess valid leadership training would address some of this, or at least acknowledge the dynamic exists. Maybe come up with some practical suggestions for keeping that glom-on reaction in people at bay.

Maybe we could call this the INTJ-version of the cult-workplace?

I wonder how common it is? It would be nice to hear experiences from a few other folks.

 

[Worth Lessemo]

I didn't like it at all. And it confused me too. Gave me a whole other facet of the imposter complex to worry about, because I couldn't even frame the issue to myself without words like 'charisma' getting in there. Words I didn't even like using, forget all about actually trying to sum myself up for and assess how much of the stuff I supposedly had.

I don't know how other more at-ease 'leader' types deal with this. It would be simple but wrong to make the sweeping statement that all 'personality leaders' are just popularity whores, but it seems to be a problem for me. I don't look to be 'liked' - I really think that I don't. But I guess in my own paradigm of the world, I can't figure out why anyone would follow anyone unless there was some level of genuine ideological buy-in to justify it. So (thinking out loud, painfully slowly) I guess I went around manifesting my own ethos at other people since that's the only way I'd afford anyone else enough credibility to let them tell me what to do - I'd want them to show me their cards. I actually think it's a death spiral waiting to happen, in hindsight. I was quite upset for a while that I just didn't foresee the way it was going to go. Predicting that just seemed so contemptuous of the people involved ;-) I wanted to think they were better, more independent, than that.

I guess valid leadership training would address some of this, or at least acknowledge the dynamic exists. Maybe come up with some practical suggestions for keeping that glom-on reaction in people at bay.



I wonder how common it is? It would be nice to hear experiences from a few other folks.

Agreed. It would be nice to have other accounts to compare.

Thank you for sharing this. I found it to be helpful.

 

[Therese C]

I don't know how other more at-ease 'leader' types deal with this. It would be simple but wrong to make the sweeping statement that all 'personality leaders' are just popularity whores, but it seems to be a problem for me. I don't look to be 'liked' - I really think that I don't. But I guess in my own paradigm of the world, I can't figure out why anyone would follow anyone unless there was some level of genuine ideological buy-in to justify it. So (thinking out loud, painfully slowly) I guess I went around manifesting my own ethos at other people since that's the only way I'd afford anyone else enough credibility to let them tell me what to do - I'd want them to show me their cards. I actually think it's a death spiral waiting to happen, in hindsight. I was quite upset for a while that I just didn't foresee the way it was going to go. Predicting that just seemed so contemptuous of the people involved ;-) I wanted to think they were better, more independent, than that.

I guess valid leadership training would address some of this, or at least acknowledge the dynamic exists. Maybe come up with some practical suggestions for keeping that glom-on reaction in people at bay.

I wonder how common it is? It would be nice to hear experiences from a few other folks.

Okay, I'll chime in. I'm a personality leader but not a popularity whore. My job is to lead 30-100 people in creating an artistic product that is my vision. (Uh, not sure how much sense that makes, but I'd like to keep my exact job description off of here---small world and all).

I've spoken with some of my followers, trying to understand why they follow. It's mystifying to me because I will not willing follow someone until I trust and respect them. Apparently most people have much lower standards! Must be true since they follow me gladly ;-)

The thing is, leadership and followship exist on a continuum. We INTJs tend to be closer to one end. But there is a whole world of people out there who want to follow. People who know their skills and want someone to lead them in how they apply their skills (SJs perhaps?)

I had to do alot of self-grown in the introversion area, because you simply cannot be introverted while doing my job. So I channel my very gregarious sister. I wish I knew how to learn to be a leader. It comes very naturally to me. The only thing I know for sure is that you MUST have a vision of where you wish to go, and boldly go there.

 

[bluekitdon]

Leadership is not a popularity contest. People must trust you, meaning they view you as competent, you have underlying core principals, and you do what you say you are going to do. Ideally they should know where you are leading them, but once enough trust is established even that doesn't matter much. I don't go out of my way to lead, but I always find people following because they know I will try to do what I feel is right after hearing all views even if it is not popular. You can lead from any position in life.