ESTJ and Self-Respect

 
People with ESTJ preferences like to organise projects, operations, procedures, and people and then act to get things done. They live by a set of clear standards and beliefs, make a systematic effort to follow these, and expect the same of others. They value competence, efficiency and results and display them in their work and play.

ESTJ’s enjoy interacting and working with others, as long as the others are responsible about meeting deadlines and completing assigned tasks. They work best in situations where clear, known problems can be solved with proven techniques.

Human Values

What are Human Values? Human Values are those universal concepts, drivers of action which are found in all cultures, all societies, all times and in all places where human beings eke out their lives. The five human values, which can be found in all cultures, all societies and in all religions, are Truth, Right Action, Love, Peace and Non-Violence. These values are eternal; they are eternal essences, which elevate human life to its highest expression, its highest capacity.

Our values are our principles, our guides. Values are our codes of internal conduct, the principles upon which we run our lives and make our decisions. Our first values are given to us by our parents, and these are added to by those values modelled for us by our peers, our teachers, the wider community. Our moral values are often sourced from our faith systems. It is from these that we select the principles which guide our choices and our behaviours.

Self Respect

One of the Five Human Values is Peace. Peace has sub-values, behaviours, attitudes, feelings and emotions that build the full picture of Peace, such as self-confidence, patience, optimism, humility, calm, concentration and fortitude. Here we look to self-respect as a sub-value of Peace.

Self Respect feels like self-assurance, confidence, peacefulness, satisfaction and a state of happiness. When others have self respect they are dignified, manage their feelings and actions in a respectful manner, and are replete with self-confidence. In appearance and behaviour, self respect looks like calm, gravitas, self-esteem and being personally responsible for one’s thoughts and feelings. The challenges we find with self respect can be patience, self control, self-discipline and performance character: modifying one’s behaviour to elicit acceptance. The benefits of self-respect are self-worth, management of personal goals, the delay of gratification, self control and self-trust.

The limits of self respect are pride, self-protection, refusing humiliation, setting of boundaries, keeping one’s dignity and not presenting as a person who has perfection. Self respect is not personal perfection. The opposite of self respect is shame, disgrace, arrogance, conceit and dishonour.

ESTJ Preferences

A metaphor for the Myers Briggs typology (MBTI) might be shown by which had you prefer to write with. You are very good with one hand and perhaps, not as good with the other hand. These indicate clearly to you – and others – what your preferences are and somewhat illustrate your attitudes, feelings and behaviours. These are simply preferences, not a form of judgement or locking people down to stereotypes or memes. Those presumptions are a form of type-terrorism, and this is not our goal here. Our purpose here to to bring self understanding, self awareness, self confidence and self-assurance. As we have shared, ESTJ’s are organisers: they are practical, realistic, logical, analytical, objective and focus on tried-and-true systems that get the task (any task) completed.

The challenges ESTJ’s face are interior and personal. Their preferences do not extend to public expressions of feelings, emotions and touchy-feely caring for others. In many ways, being task oriented their feelings are suppressed, and one observed behaviour is applying logic to people where being sensitive might be a better approach and get the best results. They may also face challenges with intimacy connections. They might seem as arrogant and cold sometimes, but are really sentimental and warm once you are in their circle of trusted friends. ESTJs are very practical problem solvers, and they find our way on their terms. ESTJ’s need emotionally available friends to listen and be present with them since they can struggle with emotionally vulnerability.
 

We are all human, we all have strengths and weaknesses, and like the writing example, we do well in some parts of our lives, and in other parts of our lives, we do not have such well-developed skills. This is not any judgement, it is simply explaining that we are all different; we see the world in different ways, we live our lives according to our values, and that everyone has preferences in gathering data, evaluating and making decisions, and living out our their lives.

Feedback and Review

Speaking of living our out lives, we play many roles. We can be the intimate partner, the parent, the supervisor, the friend, the worker or the student. These are all roles we might play – and more. If we take manager or parenting roles, we can look to our actions and see how we embody self-respect. What are our goals in interacting with family, or in the workplace? We may seek to elicit respect and practice self-assurance. We can internally rehearse self-respect, we can check our behaviour and attitudes, and do a weekly feedback or review for ourselves and evaluate both progress or behaviour.

This self-review is important: We need to have knowledge about ourselves, build our character bank and interpersonal skills, and live with balance and insight into ourselves and embody integrity in our personal identity.