Why don't many INTPs want to lead exactly?

[RandomGeneratedName]

How about you?





I do have my against "reasons", ultimately though, they are just problematic thinking patterns and fears which I can overcome and dissolve in the future, thereby not actually being a real limitation.


I'm just curious why you guys aren't more interested in leading positions and management roles etc. We can manage lines of code and do amazing things...
Could we not succeed in managing others, with the right training?

 

[RandomGeneratedName]

Interesting bit of info:
most INTPs are Enneagram Type 5s,
Enneagram Type 5s GROWTH PATH is actually to Type 8 (Leader)

 

[rainman312]

For many INTPs, it isn't so much that they can't lead, they just don't want to. Most INTPs are more interested in following their own path, neither leading others nor following them. I suppose an INTP leader would be excellent, though there would certainly be problems with paperwork/bureaucracy, and many people may have problems with the unorthodox nature of INTPs.

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

I don't know how anybody else sees this,
but for me, managing/leading has the bitter aftertaste of being manipulative,
to exploit and impose your will on others who are dependent on you for some reason or another.
When i look at examples of people considered "great leaders" in history, most of them appear to me to be power-addicted psychopaths.

And when that monarch addressed him with greetings, and asked if he wanted anything, "Yes," said Diogenes, "stand a little out of my sun."

 

[Ex-User (11125)]

but for me, managing/leading has the bitter aftertaste of being manipulative,

yeah I'm also afraid of exploiting people(ofcourse a good leader doesn't have to be exploitive or manipulative), and I also feel stressed under situations where I am responsible for other people, so i try to avoid them as much as I can.

 

[TheManBeyond]

Leading gives me the power to engage people to my own vision, they become mere objects that i use for getting what i want but here is the real shitty thing about leading, you have to make choices that fuck people almost every time, Te > Fi and i feel bad to tell someone to fucking go home because he can't do his job properly, it would be painful for me, i would feel his pain, no this isn't Fe, this is just feeling but i do understand that it is acceptable at some point even if the guy puts all his soul in what he does. The thing is, how much you want something? that the will itself controlled you to the point of killing a hundred of people in the airplane.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

I admit to being a manipulator if the results of my actions weren't approved afterwards or consulted a priori. But I generally feel like leadership is about manipulation which sometimes is necessary.

When i look at examples of people considered "great leaders" in history, most of them appear to me to be power-addicted psychopaths.

I'd say it is more efficient and historically accurate for leaders to be psychopaths and abuse power, than it is for them to suffer consequences of their actions, in fact suffering because they used their leadership.

I'm just curious why you guys aren't more interested in leading positions and management roles etc. We can manage lines of code and do amazing things...
Could we not succeed in managing others, with the right training?

The right training in objectification is so that people are able to manage others the way they manage equations or code.
I think rationals have a general tendency for this type of behaviour.

Highly distributed form of leadership, or group leadership based on feedback and experience avoids the negative aspects of power abuse, in theory. Basically, not-hierarchical, or level-by-level justified, in that factions of each level suffer only from the factions of the higher level of power. Best to make it just one level one faction state.

In short: leadership and attention are ugly to deal with.

 

[Happy]

I think it's more of a conflict with our nature as introverts.

In my own case, I'm a natural leader, but when I do step up to the role, it's usually short lived because when people recognise me as a leader, they direct attention to me and will socially interact with me - which I would rather not have to sustain and I will generally make an effort to promote another candidate, so I may slink into the shadows until I've had enough chance to recharge my social energy.

Actually, one of my degrees is a Bachelor of Construction Project Management and now that I think of it, I'm fairly certain leadership was not mentioned once in the whole management degree...

 

[Grayman]

Many different reasons that have nothing to do with the actual leading but as a consequence of putting my time in that area. I would rather do things by myself where I can choose where to be creative and how I want to do things. If I am in charge of others, I have to be boringly consistent.

 

[Ex-User (8886)]

How about you?





I do have my against "reasons", ultimately though, they are just problematic thinking patterns and fears which I can overcome and dissolve in the future, thereby not actually being a real limitation.


I'm just curious why you guys aren't more interested in leading positions and management roles etc. We can manage lines of code and do amazing things...
Could we not succeed in managing others, with the right training?

Because of lazyness. A leader do more stuff and have more responsibilities.

However I like leading and think I do it good. If in group there is no ESTJ or ENTJ I usually lead.

 

[Yellow]

It's so much work. I was saying this before, but I have this crazy need to be perfect at everything in my professional life. When I am in charge of other people, their work is a reflection of me, so their work has to be perfect too. That means following-up, training, supporting, coddling, coaxing, "corrective counseling", firing, hiring, and holy fuck, that's on top of my own work. This wouldn't be a problem except, I don't micromanage. I trust those under me to be competent, I trust them to be honest, I really want them to be self-sufficient, and I know that a happy underling is a good underling. So it's always a balancing act. It's stressful and annoying and ultimately, everything is my responsibility.

Now tell me, who on earth would want that?

But in a group of people, no matter how experienced the rest are, I usually take my place as the most competent person within a few months. I also don't know how to just tolerate inefficiency, ethical violations, and incorrectness in the workplace. So, I appear "proactive" and attract the attention of higher-ups. In reality, I'm just trying to make sure I'm doing everything I can to avoid earning my own scrutiny (to feel like I'm good enough). It's overcompensating behavior and it's pride and it gets me heaped with responsibility, and I suspect I'm not alone in this.

 

[onesteptwostep]

Actually I think INTPs have the highest potential to lead as a leader because of their inherently high observant and analytic skills, and especially if we take the patience to hone our intrapersonal lenses. I think they tend to pick up on things which are under the superficial, things which most extroverts tend to forgo, whether it be people themselves or some type of system or structure.

I think INTPs 'see' the big picture and the elements and dynamics which interplay with each other. We understand phenomena- though our shortcomings sometimes could be not crossing checking with what our hypotheticals are.

I think Happy gets it right when we say we don't want to lead though- with leadership comes the factor of having to socialize, which tires the introvert. Maybe keep your social circles small? idk

 

[SpaceYeti]

When you lead others, you sometimes have to explain things you understand fully, and we lack patience for that. Also, details, checking blocks, etc.

 

[Architect]

• 8% of people are introverted intuitives.
• 28% are intuitives.
• 50% are extraverts
• 72% are sensors.

So, assuming the population you are leading is evenly distributed, you're biggest shareholder is extraverted sensors, and you'll spend the majority of your time catering to their needs. Enjoy.

 

[QuickTwist]

INTPs don't like being criticized. Its a hypothesis at least.

 

[Cognisant]

I see leadership as a kind of servitude, if you're telling people what to do then you're effectively doing their thinking for them (otherwise they wouldn't need you to tell them what to do) and undertaking the managerial task of keeping everyone organised and working together efficiently.

That's exhausting

I'm happy to lead by example, to be the pathfinder who maps out new territory so others may follow but that's a very "hands off" style of leadership, I have a hard enough time deciding what I want myself to do, how am I supposed to make that decision for others?

 

[Jennywocky]

I don't like telling people what to do or making their decisions for them.

I'm not good at forced closure just to make things move along.

I'm more reactive versus proactive -- Informative vs Directive.

I hate feeling dragged down by having to consider others all the time.

There's also a lot of concerns that don't involve rationality / information when you're with a group -- you've got people who operate from a wide basis of motivations who all have to be brought in the same basic direction somehow, and you've got sometimes interpersonal drama which is just annoying to deal with.



However, I'm insightful, responsive to changes in the environment / moment, come up with decent answers / strategies, etc. I tend to think I do really well as the main advisor to a leader.

 

[QuickTwist]

Famous INTP leaders?

 

[peoplesuck]

leading is j sht, advising is more intp

 

[kiddollars]

I actually enjoy leading teams with many Ps in them and ideally an insecure J all on his own. I find that what happens is that the J sharpens up his focus more than usual rather than morally bludgeoning every single comment with the first thing that comes to his (or her, sorry) mind. When surrounded by Ps I've found that quick-to-judge people are aware the ball game is a bit more intense and that thoroughness is appreciated - as is "being" right about something rather than "feeling" right about it - and then the best can come out in them (even though they don't have the best time of it ...) Extroverts are also very manageable since extroversion I frequently find is just a more basic level of intelligence - while you won't achieve anything remarkable with a whole lot of them, they all feed off one another, and if you get one who is quite astute and doesn't suck you dry of energy in 2 mins the dynamic crosses OK.

Unfortunately, this is rarely the case: often I have found (I'm 34 by the way) that the majority of people who love being in teams are either E-heavy or worse still, J-heavy, and thus leading such a motley crew entail you having to sit about listening to these guys and gals bullshit for hours on end about stuff that frankly, I could have probably sussed out at 13 years old and arrived at a more original conclusion, and you have to constantly make sure you are staying preoccupied with mundane "people management" issues so the J's don't go off one and start some disruptive fight that again, just wastes time.

Given the choice of leading or following, I will always lead however. This means I have had to be much more selective about who I work with (especially as that directly affects your commercial prospects very often). For a while I enjoyed being Number 2, and would enjoy that position if only it didn't always turn out that I end up knowing Number 1's job much better than he/she does and then just leave the team/company and venture out on my own and try the same for myself.

I will leave you with one example from my own career of what I consider to be a effective way that INTPs can lead. In the subprime crisis companies were going bankrupt left, right and center. I had used to be in corporate finance but went into financial journalism later in my 20s, so by the time the subprime crisis came around I was pretty perfectly placed - to cover it as opposed to be swept up in it. Except suddenly I had a number of CEOs asking me if I had contacts and sources that could help save their companies and did the sums, and quickly figured out that if I could manage to come up with some kind of structure that worked and find some others to help save these small businesses, I would actually walk away from the crisis with some pretty nice cash.

So, I quit my journalism job (not difficult as it was a daily column which I wrote from home anyway: I hate offices) and ventured out on my own as a consultant and contracted everyone on a commission only basis to help save the companies. It was actually OK since I was still working from home, on the phone (much better than in company) met some investors for dinner or one of the CEOs once a week for a few months while I designed the structure and before we knew it, we had several million dollars of funding and ... long story short, today the companies are all hiring again!

I believe this illustrates how in a time of crisis, when others feel much weaker that they don't need these CONSTANT get-togethers that just wear you thinner than a leaf after 4 hours, and when left to our own devices, we can actually be not just tremendous leaders but essential pillars of strength in woe, since we don't panic about technical problems and nor do we judge a situation necessarily as "bad" just because it's not attractive to everyone at the moment (it's much more about the people involved for me to be honest).

The CEO of one of the companies still tells me to this day that he owes it all to me that he has a business - and this guy is an out and out E. Different times call for different leaders, is my point ...

Hope this helps anyway

 

[nearfantastica]

I think INTPs are good mediators and consultants. We're the people that operate behind the curtains and help the bigwigs better suited to leading than us.

 

[The Grey Man]

Leading is active, so it has the onus. I ask, why should I want to lead? Usually I don't get a satisfactory answer, so I don't lead.

 

[EditorOne]

Famous INTP leaders: I think Dwight Eisenhower hovered on the border between ENTP and INTP. I think Ulysses Grant was an INTP. In both cases, circumstances were perfect for an INTP kind of person to end up in overall control of a situation that required analysis on a conceptual basis, for an overall grand design that S types could then implement. For the benefit of the history deprived (no judgment, I just know not everyone is a history geek like me), that would be overall Allied commander during part of WWII for Eisenhower and overall control of all Union armies in 1864 and 1865 for grant. Oddly enough, both men rose to the top of a military organization, which quite a few of us on this forum tend to regard as an unlikely place for an INTP. And it wasn't a good place, for Grant, until he was in a military actually at war: It was so bad he quit and only returned to the military at the outbreak of the Civil War. He also had a drinking problem which fits the kind of quirky drinking or substance abuse problem INTPs sometimes have: He drank when he was bored out of his mind, but when he had a worthwhile, challenging problem to solve he was fine. Both men had the INTP's ability to dispassionately see a solution and not be emotionally wrecked by the human cost. That's an incredibly valuable asset for a top military leader.
Grant was not ambitious. Eisenhower was, but not obsessively.
Only two I could think of, and INTP is not a hard-and-fast assessment in either case. I believe there are more, but an INTP seeking a leadership role often has to assume so many non-INTP personality facets that they may be "masked" to everyone but their closest associates.

 

[onesteptwostep]

That reminds me, I think Eisenhower's Iron Cross speech is a projection of his Ti-Fe conflict. We gotta make bombs and stuff, but is it really worth it?

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

I mean who the f--k invented the iron cross as a means to put forward the notion of honour and what legitimated them to put that into a caste and pass it on to further generations.
Look at how many "Lords" of "Great Britain" are child molesters and hold honorary titles.
What the f--k is going on that we still hold these "honourable" persons "honourable" after what they did?

 

[onesteptwostep]

?

What do you mean?

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

?

What do you mean?

Well, obviously, i mean exactly what i tried to communicate with you.

 

[onesteptwostep]

I think it's pretty simple in what it's trying to communicate. I don't think Eisenhower was advocating for honor or anything like that. He was just saying planes and bombs cost this much stuff, and like this much roads or this much food- begging the question of whether or not all this fighting with the Russians is worth it.

This there some British perspective I'm not aware of? o_O

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

I'm sorry that i haven't explained to you in detail how the whole notion of the iron cross is an invention of germanic supremacy.
I'm also sorry to having not explained to you how mother theresa is a mass murderer.
If god's light will shine on you, you will understand, if not, then not.

 

[onesteptwostep]

Oh hahaha. Okay I understand what you're saying.

Here's the speech excerpt, though, it doesn't really have to do anything with german supremacy.

Spoiler

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

Wiki actually calls it the change for peace speech. I learned it as the Iron Cross speech so yeah, that's where the confusion probably arose. That's interesting, Europeans probably would relate 'Iron Cross' with german supremancy while 'Iron Cross speech' to an American would remind them of Eisenhower. You learn things everyday huh? o:

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

It doesn't matter how much you'd like to convert the iron cross as a sign of peace and understanding, it goes back to the illegitimate occupation of slavic territority in sake of the roman catholic church.
The same liars that made jesus a god.
I have no respect for them now, i have no respect for them before.
They are impostors.
They were not nailed to the cross,
but they declare the murder of a holy man a symbol of their followers.
You are wretched, you don't understand.
You are corrupt,
you preach morality and engage in the most atrocious acts even within your own system of morality.
You are beyond repair.
You are hypocrites and it's no wonder why most people break away from you.

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

Oh no, you're wrong,
the iron cross goes back to the middle ages when the Holy Roman Empire tried to emancipate itself from the pope.

 

[EditorOne]

How did we get from INTPs as leaders (or not) to the origins of the iron cross and its implications in modern culture?

 

[Sinny91]

Interesting bit of info:
most INTPs are Enneagram Type 5s,
Enneagram Type 5s GROWTH PATH is actually to Type 8 (Leader)

I was just about to respond to this thread explaining that I dont actually mind leading people; I am an effective leader, and the role makes me feel productive. Naturally I respect everybody's liberty, and will only lead those who want to be lead. A leader demonstates and sets examples, a boss delegates and judges.

 

[ENTP lurker]

Well, I'm fairly sure that INTPs are incapable of leading pack of buffoons aka normal people. I can't handle it either
without background help/structure. Leading position in army is out of the question (and I'm also non-caring pacifist). I can coordinate (barely) or teach but that is it.

If someone wants socionics explanation it is Se PoLR. It means that INTPs are very averse towards control, violence, expansion, power struggle etc to point of being vulnerable to it. In essence it means you want to use Ne to backup Ti to a point of being blind to Se. While you are able to see that Ti needs some Fi but your Ne is not capable of Se. I'm other way around.