Ryan Howard personality type: ENTP

Ryan Howard’s career reads like a stock chart drawn by a toddler. Temp. Salesman who barely sells. Vice president at corporate, with a fresh beard and a big launch for the company website. Arrested for fraud. Back to temp. Founder of WUPHF. Hipster. Father. Runaway. Every version is a costume, and he believes in each one completely.

The costumes come from a 3 with a 4 wing. Threes build their identity around success and image, and their deepest fear is being worthless without achievements to show. Ryan’s sense of self shifts with whatever looks impressive this year. When he rises to corporate, he talks down to the old office. When he falls, he reinvents himself instead of reflecting. The 4 wing adds the moody, too cool side: the fedora phase, the scarves, the conviction that he is more interesting than Scranton.

As an ENTP, Ryan generates pivots nonstop through extraverted intuition. Dunder Mifflin Infinity, WUPHF, a social network that sends your message by every channel at once, a dozen side hustles: he always has a new concept. Introverted thinking makes him clever and cynical, quick with a putdown and quick to spot what is lame about other people’s ideas.

The charm he turns on when he needs it, especially with Michael, who adores him for years, is extraverted feeling. Introverted sensing is the problem. Details, follow through and boring reality are where Ryan falls apart. His website is struggling, so he counts the same sales twice, and he is arrested in front of a camera crew. Even the first time we really notice him, it is because a cheese pita in the toaster oven sets the office on fire.

Does he grow? Not much. In the finale he shows up with his baby son, then runs off with Kelly and abandons the child, who ends up with Nellie. If growth means choosing who you are and staying there, Ryan never quite manages it. He just finds a new costume.

Some fans type Ryan as ESTP, pointing to his partying and impulsiveness. It is a reasonable read. Still, his reinventions are about ideas, trends and startups, not physical thrills. He falls in love with concepts first, and that is extraverted intuition.