In business, hiring mistakes and promotion mistakes are especially costly. When someone is in the wrong role, they begin to drag down results, team atmosphere, and overall manageability.

That is why, sooner or later, every leader faces two practical questions: whom to hire, and what can truly be delegated when the role involves not routine execution but managerial responsibility.

Over years of entrepreneurship and working with business owners and managers at different levels, I arrived at a simple conclusion: high-quality people management almost inevitably depends on a solid understanding of psychology. You can have an excellent grasp of product, finance, and processes — and still make repeated mistakes with people, while the business keeps paying the price.

That is exactly why, if you want to strengthen your team, it makes sense to systematically develop your managerial psychology. For me, the Jungian tradition and MBTI have become the most practical language for leadership: they help structure observation and more quickly identify the individual behavioral patterns that, in reality, shape work quality and management style. 

Why Knowing Only “Your Own” Type Is Not Enough 

In practical management, the key question is not so much “Who am I?” as how different people are structured and which roles come more naturally to them. Typology is most useful as a tool of orientation: it helps me more accurately predict where a person will be strong, where they are likely to lose stability, and which responsibilities are best delegated to them step by step.  

Four Professional Categories: Who Can Be Developed Into a Leader — and Who Cannot 

If we look at work without romanticizing it, people in real organizational settings can often be divided into four categories based on their level of autonomy and responsibility.

Intern — does not yet sustain personal responsibility for results and requires constant external support and control. This may be completely normal at the start of a career, but this level of autonomy does not work in a leadership role.

Specialist — performs a specific type of task well and reliably holds a professional area of responsibility.

Master — does not merely “follow instructions,” but is able to improve the way work is done, raise quality, and find stronger solutions. This is already the level of professional creativity in the applied sense: completing a task in the best available way.

Authority — a person recognized for competence and achievement; someone capable of moving decisions through people, taking power and responsibility in order to realize an intention. Ideally, the leader of a team is precisely this kind of authority — not by title, but by influence and level.

The practical problem is that key positions are often sought by strong specialists, while what the company actually needs is a manager who can bear the pressure of responsibility while also developing people. And the leader making the appointment needs to be able to distinguish between those worth developing into leaders and those for whom a strong expert growth path would be the better fit.

There is another managerial reality as well: it is difficult to retain an ambitious and capable leader without expanding their scope. Once a person has grown into management, what keeps them in the company — beyond compensation — is the opportunity to keep developing in terms of authority, project scale, and responsibility. Suppressing that potential leads either to departure or to internal demotivation and stagnation.

How I Used MBTI as a Framework for an Ideal Company Structure 

Using MBTI typology together with my own frameworks and observations about roles, I developed a working hypothesis for how positions can be distributed. My hypothesis is not a “verdict,” but a practical model that helps me ask better questions in interviews, understand adaptation strategy more clearly, and make fewer mistakes in promotion decisions. 

◢ Senior Leadership Level 

Chief Executive Officer — ENTJ
Orientation toward order, responsibility, and managerial firmness.
Level: authority

Executive Director / operational leadership — ESTJ
Level: authority / master

Chief Accountant — ISTJ / ESTJ
Level: master / specialist

Chief Financial Officer — INTJ / ENTJ
Level: authority / master
(strategy, systems thinking, long-term horizon)

Commercial Director — ENFJ / ESFJ
Level: master
(strong orientation toward people and deals)

HR Director — ENFJ / ENTP
Level: master / specialist
(communication, hiring, development, culture)

Corporate Secretary — INFJ / ISTJ / ISFJ
Level: specialist
(precision, stability, maintaining order) 

◢ Middle Management and Functional Roles

Executive Assistant — ENTP / INFJ
Level: master
(“intellectual dispatcher” / “operational anchor”)

Sales — ESFJ / ENFJ / ESTJ
Level: specialist
(often strong in maintaining contact and pace)

Marketing — ENTP / ENFP
Level: master / specialist

Analytics — INTP / INFJ / INTJ
Level: specialist
(logic + precision)

Research / creative research — ENTP / INTP / ENFP
Level: master

Creative Design — INFP / ENFP / ENTP
Level: master

Technical Design — INFJ / ISFJ
Level: specialist

Reception / front office — ESFP / ISFP
Level: specialist / intern
(often more effective in service and contact roles with clear rules) 

Two Types That Created Managerial Difficulties for Me in Small Business

In my experience, ESTP and ISTP often perform better:

• either in self-employment or their own independent project,

• or within large systems with very strict boundaries and control.

In businesses where the cost of personal responsibility is high, these profiles, in my observation, can create more unpredictability — especially when a role requires long-term adherence to regulations, discipline, and “boring” consistency.

What This Means for Career Growth Within a Company 

ISTJ, ESTJ, and ENFJ often show a natural tendency toward management and higher levels of responsibility.

ESFJ can be very strong in commercial roles and in hands-on management, but when promoting them to first-line leadership, it is important to carefully assess their ability to hold strategy, think long-term, and balance the company’s interests rather than only local effectiveness.

INFJ and ISFJ are usually strongest where stability, precision, and the systematic maintenance of processes are required; advancement is possible, but they are often better suited to leadership roles “from the shadows,” without constant public exposure and political pressure.

Other types often function more effectively as force multipliers: in analytics, innovation, communication, design, and culture. They can grow into management, but usually require a more precisely calibrated role and environment so that managerial load does not consume their strengths.

An Important Note from a Leader 

If typology is used carefully — as a tool for observation and validation — it becomes a practical way to reduce the risk of poor appointments and more accurately identify the people who can genuinely grow into leadership.