Personality Types in Finance

I recently took personality tests, and figured out I'm an ENTJ with Enneagram Type 8w7, so one of the more assertive, aggressive personality types.

Honestly, I feel like almost everyone in finance is type A, ENTJ/ESTP/ESTJ and a lot of type 8s. Positive traits aside, a lot of type 8s deal with a tendency to overwork and overindulge, can be assertive/confrontational, and lack empathy towards others emotions (all true in my case). 

What are some of your personality types? How do you guys deal with some of the negative aspects of your personality? I feel like the more stress I'm under and the less sex/adrenaline/dopamine I have, the more the negative tendencies come out and I can get pretty aggressive/irrational when seeking out thrills (I bought a Kawasaki Ninja once on a whim and rode it home without ever having ridden a bike before). 

 
kiltedlowlander

Honestly, I feel like almost everyone in finance is type A, ENTJ/ESTP/ESTJ 

You’re wrong and clearly you make bad assumptions.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

Had a good laugh at that one. 

"The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly" - Robert A. Wilson | "If you don't have any enemies in life you have never stood up for anything" - Winston Churchill | "It's a testament to the sheer belligerence of the profession that people would rather argue about the 'risk-adjusted returns' of using inferior tooth cleaning methods." - kellycriterion
 

Just putting aside that there was another recent thread on this exact topic discussing people's exact type and now speaking more anecdotally...

My expectation entering M&A IB as an ENTP (or really any vocal extrovert personality) was that I'd be working alongside other similar types (of the wolf of all street ilk).

What I found was that M&A below director/senior VP is quite heavily weighted towards technical, engineering, process-oriented introverted personalities, both in my team and in the people and counterparts I met from other M&A teams.

My suspicion is that these introverts make the best juniors and learn to exhibit extroverted behaviours to become senior revenue generators later (networking and selling, etc.), whilst the few extroverted juniors simply survive and maybe flourish later.

 

In very broad and general terms I think buy side roles make sense for junior ENTPs, particularly in more entrepreneurial environments. Reason being that ENTPs like to have and share their opinion on things and want to act on those views, which is impossible for junior bankers who are simply told what to do.

Having said that, I gained a lot from a healthy amount of being told to shut the fuck up so I think a few years in banking and then leaving to an entrepreneurial (non MF banking 2.0 environment) fund makes sense and is the route I'm going (apologies for bias).

 

I'm ISTJ/INTJ in all the tests I've taken. Definitely feel like an introvert. Not sure how much credence I give these tests to be completely and objectively accurate representations of something as complex as personality, but they are helpful yardsticks IMO.

Negatives for me include general cynicism/negativity and mental exhaustion from being online for communications (not necessarily at my desk, but online) 100hrs a week. I need several hours of actual quiet time where I don't talk to anybody each week to remain sane. I think I'm definitely a 'black sheep' at my firm and tend to approach analysis and related workstreams differently than my boss/peers, which I think adds value, but is tiring to me.

 
Most Helpful

I don't believe that four letters cover ones personality but FWIW I am an ESTJ (I know basic finance dude). But I can say I've supplemented it astrologically (something else I don't believe in) by being a double Aries! I indeed have an extroverted and dominating personality which has served me well thus far. I've actually spoken to some pretty senior folks on this topic who happened to be ESTJs as well who said as they got older they became ISTJs given their natural inclination to be heavily extroverted died down quite a bit despite their jobs relying on constant relationship development/management.

Important to remember that even if you're an introvert (at least per this test) at any point in your life, it doesn't mean you're bad with people or hate social interaction. You could just activate your charm/charisma much more selectively when you deem necessary. Thought that was an interesting point to bring up given we in society typically incorrectly bucket introverts as hermits who have an inability to properly interact with others. 

 

MBTI doesn’t indicate shit.

If an overweight autist lacking in self awareness imagines himself to be a gregarious go-getter, he will test as ENTJ. Many people will check off answers that are biased as fuck or even ungrounded in reality. 
 

As for personality types, IB has your run of the aforementioned autists and go-getters along with an assortment of dorks who are very into showing off their gym bags

 

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