ENTJ vs. ESFP: Differentiating Their Loops

People who are looping always seem to be more difficult to type. There is something about the feedback loop that is created that kind of muddles up the distinguishing factors in cognitive processing. This is honestly part of the reason that we have a hard time deeming any kind of long term consistent looping as healthy behavior. Doubling down on either an extraverted or introverted preference ultimately leads to an imbalance in one’s type that will most commonly manifest as either overthinking and inaction in an introverted loop, or a lack of introspection and increased impulsivity in an extraverted loop. It is the cycling between those two functions with the same orientation (introversion or extraversion) that can make it hard to tell which cognitive function is dominant.

As the title of this article suggests, today I am going to focus on distinguishing between Te-Se and Se-Te loops. Hopefully, this article will aid in being able to tell them apart since sometimes it’s difficult to tell which function is higher when in a loop. These two functions specifically can be problematic since there is already some similar types of reasoning that influence both Te and Se users. They both, for instance, have a desire to interact with their external world and have more of an action oriented focus (albeit the underlying reasoning for wanting to act is fundamentally different). So, this just further adds to some of the confusion.

The Te-Se Loop

This loop is one that focuses on swift and impulsive action. Typically, what you will see with a loop is that the person will have a fixation on their tertiary function. This will lead the Te dominant to look far more impulsive than they would be otherwise. While being extremely passive and reserved should never be the default behavior for a Te dominant to begin with, when it is coupled with Ni, the Te’s impulse for swift and efficient action is balanced and tempered by Ni’s internalized impressions of the situation at hand. While the impulse is still first and foremost to enact upon the external world, the balance of being coupled with Ni gives those moves a greater sense long term impact.

When Ni is replaced with Se in a loop situation, any sense of long term impact gives way to present moment improvisation. Te will act upon the immediate set of sensory feedback it is getting in real time. This will make the Te dominant far more impulsive than they would be in a normal state. Te’s impulse for immediate action will be completely unfettered and will result in the ENTJ being highly reactionary. Any situation they come up against will be dealt with by taking control of whatever they can find in their immediate vicinity with no thought of the future consequences of their actions, or if what they are doing is truly fixing whatever they are actually coming up against. They are only concerned with whatever they deem to be the most effective move to make in that immediate moment and taking control of the situation. They want to fix the problem now.

With that all being said, what you will find most often in the Te-Se loop is a focus on immediate action. The ENTJ will leave a trail of destruction in their wake as they haphazardly plow toward whatever solution they think makes sense off of the immediate data they can see. This makes the ENTJ look extremely impulsive, lacking any kind of foresight. It leaves them making moves that may seem to logically make sense in the moment but have large logical holes when viewed through the lense of the long term, as their moves are primarily reactionary and frequently the mistakes come back to bite them in the long term.

The Se-Te Loop

This loop is one that focuses primarily on control. The fix on Te will lead the typically laid back and improvising ESFP to clamp down in an attempt to exert control over their immediate environment. This makes them look much more stern and commanding than they typically would be otherwise. While the ESFP should never look completely stoic and introspective, when Se is coupled with Fi, there is a greater sense of checking in to ensure their actions are aligned with their sense of self and purpose. This balances the action oriented nature of Se and causes the those actions to have more gravity and purpose. While the impulse is still first and foremost to interact with and experience their immediate surroundings, those impulses will be focused more toward things that are meaningful to them.

When Fi is replaced with Te in a loop, introspection and ensuring actions align with self is replaced with an obsessive need for control. Se will try to interact with everything in it’s immediate surroundings in order to exert control over as many things as possible, giving almost a sense of trying to micro manage everything it can. Without the introspective nature of Fi, the ESFP loses sight of what is actually important to them and only cares about controlling as many things as possible. This obsessive use of Te frequently leaves them spinning their wheels, constantly doing something but never actually getting anything done. This leaves the ESFP making everything they are involved in far less efficient. This loop frequently manifests as a desire for leadership, but being a poor ineffective leader. All the while, they believe themselves to be improving things, pointing to all the things they are controlling as proof. Looping ESFPs may not realize that spreading themselves so thin and poorly managing things is forcing others to work around them rather than with them (ie: forcing others to come up behind them to compensate for their poor management).

This being said, you will find that a Se-Te loop is primarily focused on control. The ESFP will delegate work to others only to loop back around and have them change everything they did in order to continually exercise a sense of control. They will have no thought as to whether the changes they are forcing are actually in anyway truly impactful or how those changes will impact everything else that is connected to the way that something was being done. This makes the ESFP look like an abrasive, ineffective leader that lacks any true direction or purpose.

Conclusion

While these loops can and will look very similar since they are both rather destructive due to their extraverted nature, if you can figure out the fixation, they can become easier to distinguish. Ultimately, the looping ENTJ will look somewhat like a bad imitation of an ESFP trying to constantly improvise, and the looping ESFP will look like a bad imitation of an ENTJ, attempting to control everything. The ESFP will be constantly spinning their wheels, never truly making any progress (wasted effort), while the ENTJ will fix things but fix things wrong, leaving gross destruction in their wake and possibly causing things to be worse than they were before. They both lack the nuanced control over their tertiary function that would allow it’s masterful use and the introspective nature of an introverted function to temper it.