Why Study Leadership Behaviour Through the Lens Of The Enneagram?

The Enneagram has the potential to enhance leadership in any organization. The Enneagram provides a map to support, guide and challenge leaders to be their best.

Discovering your Enneagram type gives you a starting place to observe yourself in action.

Your type is related to your ego. It is the place you go when you are under stress. You don't even have to think about it. It is what you naturally do. 

This fantastic tool can help you to see beyond the limitations of your personality. It helps you to observe yourself in action. With practice, you can begin to notice when you are getting stuck in your ego. Eventually, you will be able to catch yourself before you act.

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As you get freer from the constrictions of your personality, you will have more options in life by accessing the wisdom from all nine types. Everything you do in life will flow much more naturally.

Imagine what could happen in your company if all your leaders are working at their best!

Here are nine  reasons to use the Enneagram in your organization:

1.      Improves self-confidence:

When you know that you can make a difference in the organization you work for you are more likely going to give it your all.

You are going to feel competent to talk with management and employees to achieve the goals of the organization.  You are going to be confident to speak with authority. You are going to be open to working with others, bringing your ideas together to make the best choices possible.

You will have the courage to speak the truth.  You won’t let the personalities of people get in the way of work. You will desire to bring out the best in every member of the team.

2.      Increases self-awareness:

Learning about the Enneagram helps you to understand yourself better. Once you discover your type, you know to watch out for certain behaviours and patterns.

Then with daily practice, you gradually shed your old ways of being. You let go of behaviours and patterns that no longer serve you.  It is as simple as noticing how you act through self-observation. Then choosing to work in new ways that feel in greater harmony with yourself. Learning to be present sounds easy, but it is not.

You discover parts of yourself that you have not used.  With practice, these new ways of thinking, feeling and sensing build new neural pathways between your head, heart and body. As you build new neural pathways, it becomes easier to stay healthy. Building self-awareness takes time and perseverance, but it is worth the effort.

When you are present, you have access to inner wisdom not only from a quiet mind but from the sensations of your body and the emotions of the heart. You not only have access to your inner wisdom but you have access to the intelligence around you.

3.      Reduces misunderstanding:

Learning the Enneagram in an organization helps you to be open and present, making it easier to communicate. It also helps you to understand each other. 

As you learn the nine different ways people experience the world you have more patience and compassion for each other. You now have an idea of what it is like to live in each other's world.

You learn that your colleague is not trying to drive you crazy. You realize they see the situation differently. You learn to look beyond the idiosyncrasies of each person.                                                        

Conflict happens less because you are more comfortable with yourself and have more patience with others. You have a sense of what makes each person tick.

You can see their strengths and challenges. Because you are aware of your own, you have more compassion towards each other.

4.      Provides a common language:

The Enneagram does provide a common language. You can talk about the differences between each other with openness and compassion. 

It provides a method to deal with conflict.  It gives a map to greater health. It gives non-judgmental language to work through differences and conflict.

It is a tool to help you to discover the unique talents in each person.  Each job or position needs people with certain dispositions.  The Enneagram does not tell you what you can do, but it gives you clues as to which person might be best for the job.

The Enneagram is a sophisticated tool.  Your type tells you a lot but there is, even more, to take into consideration. For example, you also identify with you wing—the type next to you. Your potential to grow through the Enneagram also depends on your level of health.

Understanding the wisdom of who you are depends on your instincts which include self-preservation, the need to be social and the need to create and connect deeply with another person. In the end, you have 27 possible personalities. So within each type, there are three different ways of seeing the world.

Your goal is to get as healthy in your type, wing and instincts as possible. When you can be healthy in all these areas, you are going to be more robust in all nine types.

When you grow together as an organization with the help of the Enneagram, it becomes an organization-wide initiative to be healthier, happier, confident and self-aware. Your job is not only to help yourself but to encourage each other on the journey. You are also there to hold each other accountable.

5.      Increases efficiency:

Working with the Enneagram can help any organization to be more efficient.  It improves productivity through having healthier, happier and self-aware employees all working at their best.

6.      Increases work enjoyment:

Work enjoyment can make all the difference. If you look forward to coming to work each day you are going to be working at your best.

The Enneagram helps you to accept yourself, providing you with a path to greater joy and purpose, compassion for others and the ability to listen with your whole selves (body, heart and mind).

Everything goes much smoother when everyone is feeling good about the people they work with and themselves.

7.      Reduces sick days:

Happy healthier employees, leaders and management are less likely to take sick days if they are emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually satisfied at work.  The Enneagram can help you to maintain that kind of well-being at your place of work.

8.      Reduces turnover among staff:

The Enneagram helps to create and maintain a healthy work environment making it less likely that people will choose to leave. Before long you will have many people desiring to get into your organization and few wanting to go

9.      Offers opportunities for leaders to share insights with management:

When you have created a team of people, who are working at their best. When you have people wanting to bring out the best in each other you create a climate of openness and respect.

Organizations that encourage feedback from all parts of the organization are the companies that have the best results not only in money but also in the eyes of the larger company.

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This openness and flexibility helps everyone to feel that they are a valued member of the team—from the custodians to the executives.

The Enneagram is being used more and more in businesses around the world. It is a tool that can unite people to make the world a better place.

It takes the commitment of all parts of the organization if it is going to have an impact. 

It works best when you and your colleagues learn the Enneagram, employees are typed and then individual or group coaching to take the learnings deeper.

Yes, this is hard work and requires some investment in the well being of your company, but the results will take your company to a new level.

I am, Roland Legge a Leadership Coach here to help you and your organization to be at your best.  You can join my private newsletter list for Free Monthly Advice and get Your Free Enneagram Test and sign up for a Free 30 Minute Discovery Call with me in my Accuity Scheduling Calendar.