Analyzing Leadership: Strengths and Challenges of ESFJ Personality

This essay explores the author's leadership strengths and challenges as an ESFJ personality type, based on the MBTI assessment. The author identifies extraversion, sensing, feeling, and judging as key aspects of their personality, highlighting strengths such as effective communication, empathy, ...Read More

Running head: LEADERSHIP
Leadership in Business
Name Of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

2LEADERSHIP
There are several challenges and strengths that I have faced due to my leadership skills.
As per the MBTI score, my personality type was ESFJ. Like all other personality type, even this
particular trait has several pros and cons. As far as my opinion is concerned I feel that I have
been able to utilize some of the good traits within me that have also been very much useful for
me to lead my followers while there are some traits that can often prove to be an obstruction
(Prasad, Roy & Sengupta 2016).
As the full form of the term ESFJ is Extravert, sensing, feeling and judging, my
personality is a mixture of all these qualities. Being extravert I can easily carry on my
communication with others. In my professional field, I never face any hesitations in
communication with my followers (Sethuraman & Suresh 2014). I can easily talk with my
colleagues and convey all the business decisions that are being taken. I have identified this
particular trait as my strength. It is for this reason that I like to work upon this skill so that I can
work upon it for future use. Being sensible has also been quite helpful. This is because I have
been able to deal with all my followers in a friendly way. I have been able to sense their
satisfaction and dissatisfaction (Jankowski 2016). I also have the ability of feeling all the
emotions deeply. I always believe that being a leader I need to sport my followers in every
aspect. I try to help them not only with the professional support but with the emotion al support
as well. As a leader I also utilize my judging skill. I believe that this skill I needed in order to
make all the important decisions at the work place. There are often several critical situations that
need to be dealt very carefully. As a leader I always try to make fair and justified decisions for
one and all. It is for this reason that I often need to make use of my judging abilities.
Like every other personality type, ESFJ also has its own advantages and disadvantages.

3LEADERSHIP
Some of the aspects of this particular trait that have been very much helpful for me are
Very loyal- I have always been a very dedicate, good and trustworthy employee. As per the
opinions of my partners, I have always been acting as the building block of the group that I have
been a part of. I can very easily make a perception about the future events and carry on the plans
accordingly. I make sure that I keep up my level of honesty in each and every field. I also try to
maintain the level of security at every step. I value the privacy of each and every individual.
Being a leader I must know how to maintain the secrecy of my followers.
Good at connecting with others- I always maintain a proper connection with all the individuals
both in the personal and at the professional fronts. I am very much keen towards serving the
society. I like to be socially active and try to work for a noble social cause (Mehta & Sidhar
2017).
Sensitive and warm
I am always very helpful towards others. I like to inculcate a feeling of peace and harmony
among all the individuals. I have realized that I am very much empathetic towards all the
individuals. I deeply feel the emotions of others. I always try to be empathetic to the individuals
rather being sympathetic. I do not just care for the sufferings of people but I always try to feel the
sufferings of others. I like to work together with all my followers. I try to create a proper team
spirit among all the individuals.
Inflexible
I am often overcritical and I think about the social contentions a lot. I often try to set my goals
and principles as per the active norms of society. However this is a great disadvantage. I need to

4LEADERSHIP
understand that the social conventions are not always right and I need to often act as per my own
perceptions in order to break several social conventions.
Too selfless
I often overlook my own interests in order to help others. However I need to balance myself in
this particular aspect because not everyone is of a good heart. There can be many people
particularly in the professional front who will be taking undue advantage of this characteristic of
mine. Hence, I need to strike proper balance in my nature as to who deserves my help and who
doesn’t.
Thereby it can be concluded that there are both positive and negative traits in my
personality that I need to work upon. I need to work on my strengths and nurture them for the
proper use in future. Similarly, I also need to work upon all negative aspects in order to improve
on them.

5LEADERSHIP
References
Farmer, A. (2016). Follow the Leader: A Team Approach to MBTI. Southern Regional Council
of Educational Administration, 16(1).
Jankowski, J. (2016). The Advocate: Your Guide to the ESFJ Personality Type. LOGOS
MEDIA.
Medders, L. A., & Baisley, S. K. (2017). Personality traits and thinking dispositions: Individual
differences call for ‘smart’messaging. Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency
Planning, 10(4), 367-383.
Mehta, S., & Sidhar, R. (2017). Role of personality type and leadership style in the choice of the
conflict handling style of the college principals and directors of the colleges in the state
of Punjab. South Asian Journal of Marketing & Management Research, 7(6), 138-154.
Prasad, M., Roy, D., & Sengupta, P. R. (2016). An analysis of the relationship between
personality types and happiness of medical faculty. Journal of Management Research
and Analysis, 3(4), 171-175.
Sethuraman, K., & Suresh, J. (2014). Effective leadership styles. International Business
Research, 7(9), 165.