The Trailblazer ENTP
Opens up new paths, so the team has more than one way forward.
45 situations at work, about ten minutes.
What the four letters of ENTP say
Energy
EExtraversion
Recharges around people
Information
NIntuition
Starts from what is possible
Decisions
TLogic
Decides on the logic
Organisation
PFlexibility
Adjusts along the way
Each letter sums up a tendency: the test measures every dimension as a percentage, and plenty of people sit near the middle on one of them.
The Trailblazer at work
💪 Strengths
Finds fresh ideas and angles where everyone thought the subject was exhausted.
Does not hesitate to suggest a change of direction when one is called for.
🌱 Environment
Thrives on novelty and open problems, where everything is still to be invented.
🤝 Working together
An objection restarts them rather than stopping them: it gives them something to rework the idea with.
Builds on other people's ideas, and new ones come out of it.
On Take Your Skills, this portrait completes the recommendations written by the people who have worked with you.
The Trailblazer, day to day in a team
In a thinking session, the Trailblazer throws out three lines where one was expected, then tests them out loud by looking for their weak points. A constraint presented as immovable becomes a question: what if we did it another way? That energy opens up options the team had not considered, especially early in a project, while nothing is set and the field is still wide.
Faced with the unexpected, this profile often sees an opening before seeing a problem, and suggests a way round it in the same breath. In a decision, the Trailblazer likes to put the arguments against each other out loud, change the angle, reword the question. Informal exchanges count for a great deal: a conversation by the coffee machine can produce a prototype the following week, and then a new piece of work for the team.
The work this profile thrives on
Imagining a new offer
Exploring uses, models or markets that are still thinly occupied, and proposing several concepts to test before keeping the most promising one.
Getting a prototype out
Turning an idea into a first testable version in a few days, collecting reactions, then correcting course without undue attachment to the first version.
Unsticking a negotiation
Finding the option nobody had put on the table when two sides are dug in, by rewording what each of them actually wants.
Rethinking an established process
Questioning a way of doing things that has been in place for years and proposing a different organisation, simpler or better suited to how people work now.
Running an exploration phase
Leading the workshops where a team looks for ideas, restarting the exchange, crossing points of view and pushing each proposal one notch further.
When this profile leads a team
With the Trailblazer leading a team, ideas move freely: everyone is invited to propose, to argue and to test, whatever their seniority. Meetings often look like open working sessions, where the answers get built together. This profile encourages quick attempts and accepts that some of them will not land, as long as the team learns from them.
What the team gains is a stimulating setting and a lot of freedom to start things. People who like to learn find varied subjects and regular chances to step outside their patch. So that the lines opened do lead to results, this profile gladly works alongside people who care about follow-up and finishing, and hands them the running of delivery.
What drains this profile
- Work that is entirely mapped out, where every step is fixed in advance and suggesting another way of doing it is neither expected nor possible.
- Long stretches of administrative follow-up, made of readings, updates and reports, with no new question to explore.
- Meetings where an idea is dismissed out of hand because “we have always done it this way”, without anyone taking the time to argue the substance.
Working with a ENTP
React to the ideas by arguing the substance, even to contradict them: the Trailblazer values a real debate far more than polite agreement.
Help with the choosing: when several lines are open, offer criteria for picking the one to carry through.
Agree together on the moment an idea moves from exploring to doing, and on who follows it day to day.
Hand over the problems the team believes have no answer, and leave room to experiment.
Complementary profiles
- The StrategistINTJThe same appetite for new ideas, the same decision by logic. The Trailblazer opens lines in conversation, the Strategist keeps one and writes it into a plan held quietly.
- The EnergiserESFPBoth draw their energy from exchange and enjoy the unexpected. The Energiser roots the Trailblazer’s ideas in the day itself, and in colleagues wanting to start on them now.
Which pillar are you in your team?
Work through 45 real situations to pin down your personality at work.
Common questions about the ENTP profile
Where does the ENTP taste for debate come from?
For this profile, debate is a working method: putting an idea up against objections tests how solid it is and finds a better version of it. It is neither opposition on principle nor a taste for conflict. The clearest sign: a good counter-proposal is welcomed with enthusiasm, and the discussion starts again at once on new ground, usually firmer than the first.
What setting helps an ENTP profile do their best work?
Open problems, new subjects and freedom in how to handle them. Variety keeps the energy up: alternating projects, meeting other teams, trying approaches nobody has tried. A light frame, with clear objectives and support on follow-up, is what turns that energy into results. Talking to the person remains the best compass.
What is the difference between ENTP and ENFP at work?
Both open up lines and enjoy novelty. The Trailblazer (ENTP) weighs an idea first on its logic and its feasibility, and gladly tests it through debate. The Connector (ENFP) judges it first by its effect on people, and gathers them around the project. Reasoned exploration on one side, collective momentum on the other. The test describes a tendency: everyone borrows from both depending on the situation.