Thanks for all of the great advice! I really appreciate all of the time and thought you've put into your posts.
I've had a very limited amount of interaction with my new boss and just recently started to work with him closely (we were on different teams). He seems to have taken a liking to me and really enjoy our brainstorming sessions where he verbalizes his analysis and bounces ideas off me. We can spend up to 4 hours in a meeting together (even if the scheduled time is only half an hour!). I really enjoy the time we spend together and I always feel fully engaged and end up losing track of time. I already implemented one of his ideas after just discussing for 2 weeks. He was genuinely happy to find that I had the skill to implement his ideas. Some of the other folk on our project feel a bit left out though because he tends to exclude them and tell me that they would not be interested in participating anyway.
His image at work is negative judging by the gossip from my co workers. I am an INTJ but I adjust my outward persona to more of an ENTP to create a deflective shield to ward off hostility and negative attention. People view him as intelligent, arrogant, distant, critical, aloof, and generally difficult to approach or work with. They also complain that he takes forever to explain his ideas and often provides too little data. He is also quick to correct them when they come up with ideas of their own. I fully understand him and am 100% comfortable with him as a person because we have a lot of common. I know that the data he leaves out is due to redundancy and the ideas make full sense in his mind. They oftentimes make full sense to me too, although sometimes I require some clarification on details
. Taking longer does not bother me because he wants to explore all the different approaches. He does not camouflage his personality and in the workplace it really causes him to be undervalued and despised.
His boss recently came on board and is basically the guy that runs our division of the company. Let's call him Big Boss (ESTJ)
. Big Boss gets on his case all the time because he hates his communication style and his ideas for "improvement" and cannot seem to deal with uncertainty. Big Boss was the one that assigned me to his team. I wonder if it's because he thinks I can help him? Big Boss and I get along very very well and he was my boss before I was reassigned. I got great performance reviews and was promoted half a year after Big Boss came on board.
I really like my boss and want to help him. I want to see him succeed! It's hard for me to defend him because people just simply do not understand his mad genius.
We usually don't mind having our assertions/methods/concepts/ideas questioned if you can do it in a thoughtful manner that shows you understand the reasoning behind her ideas.
1) Also, INTPs tend to miss details. INTJs are much better at catching them, or seem to be. Little things that fall through cracks and are forgotten, but critical. Watch for those, and you can make a very happy INTP.
My boss always solicits my ideas about his ideas. I seem to have a great talent to pinpoint flaws but it doesn't seem to bother him at all as long as it makes sense. I don't find many flaws though and most of them are practical application issues.
ESTJs are a pain in the butt. I don't know what can be done to improve her image with this boss but if the bosses attention can be drawn elsewhere, that would be helpful. At least long enough to bring your INTPs ideas to fruition.
Yes, ESTJs suck harder than a futuristic vacuum cleaner. Find some way to get him/her to go away until you finish your goals, or having a working product/whatever so that you can show them physical manifestations of your labor, and then if they bother you, you have stuff to shove in their face, as concrete evidence that you can manage yourself. Then again, I've never been stuck with an ESTJ in that position.
It's going to be rough. I never had issues with ESTJs as an INFJ but that's because I was very strict with delivering on promises and they view me as having really high work ethics and extremely stable but with creative ideas. I always link my ideas to increasing efficiency. I build trust and they leave me alone and let me do my own thing. To them my boss is a big question mark and almost like a ticking timebomb. What I admire in him is what Big Boss fears most. I guess the best thing I can do is give advice on which ideas seem more feasible to implement and from those work on implementing his ideas to build trust between them.
Vecna, are you a boy or a girl?
I am a girl. Sorry I lied about my bosses gender - not sure if it makes any difference. I was concerned that he may be reading this board but now I'm a bit more calm about that so..
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