Hi Headstorm,
I think I can offer some insight to your dilemma based upon my personal experiences.
I typically test as an INFJ and identify as one. I've explored other alternatives very earnestly but nothing else comes close to the resonances I have with INFJ. At one time I seriously considered INTJ, too, but it didn't really resonate, and I had some insight based upon my life.
Essentially this is because one of my very best friends is an INTJ, and we worked very closely for a couple of years so got to know each others' quirks and modes of operation quite well.
I met my friend, let's call him J, while I worked as a Secondary school teacher. I was in my late twenties (still am, just!), and he was 58-60 for the period we worked together. He is probably the finest man I've ever met, an ex-miner who fought in the miner's strike, and very politically active.
In our school, we were engaged in serious union activity and conflict with the leadership against some appalling conditions (and if you need proof of this, just know that the person who was ultimately responsible for the conditions was exposed, ousted, and is now undergoing police investigation, while the school leadership were all sacked once a new academy trust took over).
The staff were so fearful and demoralised that it was initially just us who fought to mobilise and to push back against any worsening of conditions. So we were engaged in an industrial and political struggle. I was acting head of department, he was union rep in the school (and eventually divisional secretary), under very very difficult circumstances. I was personally working 80+ hours per week minimum.
We would often discuss and plan, and of course acted upon things, and here's the differences I noticed:
He was very strategic (Te) and ruthless about winning the fight. He is perhaps the most principled man I've met (a similar level to me), however. I was more idealistic and concerned about truth and rightness. If we were right, we ought to win on principle, I thought, whereas he was much more realistic and keen on playing the chess game. I'll give you an example. I was engaged in an email conversation with the head about a particular issue - my approach was to deal with him honestly and in good faith; his outlook was that the head was testing our strength in a subtle way, and that we should respond in kind. I hadn't even considered the fact that the email exchange was a game in this war we were in, but on reflection he was right. The head was a scumbag and did things like that all the time (intimidation, bullying, &c.). He'd left his previous school on the back of a bullying scandal.
We were both willing to publically go to war with people and challenge them, but our actions afterwards betrayed our types. He kept his resentments and his hate and viewed them as enemies, whereas I always had the urge to reconcile for a better way forward. I had one infamous public exchange with the deputy head in a room full of 70 other teachers, where he essentially lost the case for a new policy to my argument. My friend J contributed to this, too (in fact, he started it, and I jumped in after - the rest of the staff were too afraid to say anything, as the other vocal people had already been bullied out of their jobs). I was calm but very forceful, and refused to allow him to speak over me, &c. He was seen to be visibly shaking with nerves during the exchange. Afterwards, he was a different man, completely defeated and dejected, and he never spoke to the whole staff again. I felt sympathy for the man (Fe) and attempted to reconcile with him (which he was receptive to), taking the line that we were 'just debating policy'. My friend was still very much of the opinion that the deputy head was a fool and it served him right for trying to go up against us (my friend had a very high opinion of our intellectual and moral powers, which is one of the reasons we were so effective - we had high confidence and morale). So in that case, I think an INFJ in conflict is more likely to show respect and sorrow for their defeated enemies whereas an INTJ simply views them dispassionately; they lost.
I hope these examples help, my friend. What about you? Do you feel more strategic or idealistic in conflict?
