Understanding The Enneagram
Cultivating self-awareness and understanding others is more than just a necessity, it's a superpower. This is especially true as the world around us becomes more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA).
Enter the Enneagram - a personality system offering a pathway for insight and growth, both for ourselves and our relationships. The Enneagram describes nine distinct, yet interconnected, personality types representing nine different strategies for being in the world.
Think about the Enneagram as a well-detailed map where each of the nine types represents a unique territory. These territories represent landscapes of human nature, each with its own strengths, challenges, motivations, and ways of engaging with the world.
We all have one territory that we call “home” and are most of us are comfortable here. Sometimes we forget that we can visit other territories, or don’t know how. Having the Enneagram as our map helps us venture out and explore other ways of being. This new awareness expands our perspectives and in so doing, expands our capacity for change and contribution.
Exploring The Nine Types of the Enneagram
Each Enneagram type is has a distinctive priority or motivation that determines where that type’s attention goes and what it puts its energy towards. Here’s a brief description of the priorities, focus of attention, and where the energy goes for each type. Click on the titles of the types above to get a more in-depth view of each type.
Type 1: The Improver
Improvers prioritize being good and being right, and their attention naturally goes to what’s right or wrong, correct or incorrect, and being good. Their energy goes into improving something, creating structure and organization, and avoiding mistakes.Type 2: The Helper
Helpers place prioritize being loved, helpful, and appreciated. Their attention often goes towards meeting others' needs and attending to others’ feelings. Their energy goes into relationships, seeking approval, wanting to help and please, and avoiding their own needs.Type 3: The Achiever
Achievers prioritize getting it done, and being recognized as successful. Their attention goes to tasks, goals, and recognition. As a result they put their energy into accomplishing their goals, their performance, seeking success and admiration, and avoiding failure.Type 4: The Individualist
Individualists prioritize purpose and meaning, and being unique and special. Their attention is drawn to what’s missing or unavailable/ideal. Their energy is spent longing for what could be, seeking authenticity, expressing their uniqueness, and avoiding being ordinary.Type 5: The Observer
Observers prioritize knowledge and expertise and conserving their energy. Their attention goes to intellectual pursuits, problem solving, and being self-sufficient They put their energy into accumulating knowledge, problem solving, and avoiding intrusion by others.Type 6: The Loyal Skeptic
Loyal Skeptics prioritize safety and security. Their attention goes to what could go wrong, potential worst-case scenarios and how to deal with them, and avoiding danger in all its forms. Their energy goes into questioning, requiring proof, being vigilant, and avoiding uncertainty.Type 7: The Enthusiast
Enthusiasts prioritize freedom, possibilities, being free from pain and suffering. Their attention goes to idealized future possibilities, interesting interrelated ideas, adventure, and fun. They put their energy ideating, planning for the future, and avoiding pain, limits, and boredom.Type 8: The Protector
Protectors prioritize justice, fairness, and empowerment. Their attention goes to righting wrongs, situations (and people) they perceive as unjust or unfair, and who needs protecting. They put their energy into righting wrongs, being powerful and in control, and avoiding vulnerability.Type 9: The Peacemaker
Peacemakers prioritize harmony, inner and outer peace, and feeling settled. Their attention goes to the external environment, other people’s agendas, and others’ claims on them. They put their energy into keeping the peace, fitting in, accommodating others, and avoiding conflict.
There is so much more to know and understand about the nine Enneagram types and we simply wanted to give you a taste and see the distinctions.
Applying The Enneagram Personally and Professionally
The beauty of the Enneagram is in acknowledging that we have all nine types within us; despite having one “home base”, we move through most, if not all, of the Enneagram types throughout a typical day. This makes the Enneagram dynamic and able to hold and describe our dynamic human experience.
On a personal level, the Enneagram helps us understand why we do the things we do - the underlying motivations, worldviews, and assumptions that arise within each type, and the patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that arise from those motivations. This insight and awareness helps us cut ourselves some slack, and free ourselves from being run by our automatic and instantaneous reactions. We begin to develop a deeper level of self-trust and self-compassion that helps us become braver and more resilience in this VUCA world.
In professional settings, we’ve used the Enneagram with leaders and teams to enhance communication, foster team building, and guide leadership development at all levels of the organization. Understanding others’ motivations and perspectives helps us appreciate the diverse strengths within our teams and promotes a more harmonious, productive, and creative work environment. We begin to develop a deeper level of empathy and compassion for our teammates, that leads to higher levels of trust, vulnerability, and ultimately innovation and productivity.
Getting Started
The first step in this journey involves learning your “home base” Enneagram type. Here are three ways you can begin to form your own hypothesis of where your home base is:
Easy - Pick up a copy of The Essential Enneagram: The Definitive Personality Test and Self-Discovery Guide by Dr. David Daniels and Dr. Virginia Price. You will be presented with nine paragraphs, each corresponding to one of the nine Enneagram types. You’ll read these and then rank order the three that most resonate with you. The rest of the book provide more detail on each type which you can use to choose one you want to test “in the wild”.
Complete An Online Enneagram Assessment - Take an online Enneagram typing assessment. Here’s our caveat - there are dozens, if not hundreds, of online Enneagram typing assessments and some are more effective than others. That’s me being nice. We recommend either The Narrative Enneagram Online Test ($10), which was created by Dr. Daniels and Helen Palmer, the founders of The Narrative Enneagram Tradition which Mo and I are trained in. The Integrative9 Enneagram Solutions Test ($60-110) provides a more in-depth report and is one of the favorites among business people.
BEST OPTION: Do a Typing Interview - Work with a professional Enneagram coach, teacher, or practitioner (i.e., “us”, meaning “Hive” 😉) to help you learn and understand the ins and outs of your Enneagram type, the Enneagram system, and how to apply it in your life and at work. Monique and I are certified professional coaches and Narrative Enneagram Teachers who have worked with hundreds of leaders and teams using the Enneagram. We can guide you through an Enneagram typing interview, help you interpret your online assessment results, and coach you personally and professionally using the Enneagram. Schedule a chat to learn more.
Whichever method you choose, what’s most important to remember is that the results of any self-assessment, whether online, through a book, or with a coach, will give you a hypothesis of your type. You are the ultimate author of your life, and more importantly, of who you are.
The Enneagram is a compass guiding us towards growth and transformation. Its dynamic nature encourages us to not only acknowledge our patterns but also to break free from them, creating space for more authentic expressions of who we are as individuals and in relationship with others. It's not just about identifying your type, but utilizing that insight as a stepping stone towards evolution and transformation.
Have we piqued your interest in the Enneagram? Great! Feel free to reach out to us with any questions and we hope to see you at one of our events soon.
