Key Messages
Learn How The Enneagram Can Help You Maximize Your Leadership Potential And Become A Better Human Being
The Enneagram at Work is an essential guide in unlocking inner potential—not only in terms of leadership but of life itself.
This book provides an understanding of emotions and the ways they fuel interpersonal connections and interactions.
Through this process of self-discovery, you will gain insights into your personality type and learn how to use it for success.
The journey starts by taking a deeper look into yourself—looking beyond labels and expectations imposed by society.
By exploring the Enneagram’s five principles of great leadership, the focus shifts away from trying to change what you don’t like or hiding weaknesses and instead to growing both professionally and personally, embracing our strengths and weaknesses alike.
And finally, it’s important to understand how to fail well on this journey as progress isn’t always defined by failure or success, rather showing humility in accepting both as part of growth.
Overall, The Enneagram at Work serves as an invaluable guide to understanding your emotions better while discovering inner potential to become confident leaders without needing flashy titles or expertise!
The Enneagram: Empower Yourself By Releasing Habits And Behaviors That Don’t Serve You
The Enneagram is an ancient tool for understanding the nine core personalities and how people interact with others.
The ages-old concept has been gaining popularity in recent years, and it’s even been adopted into corporate cultures to help individuals capitalize their strengths and eliminate weaknesses in order to boost trust, morale, productivity, and profits.
The main goal of using the Enneagram is to gain awareness of both your assets and blind spots as an individual as well as to develop a better understanding of your colleagues in order to form stronger bonds.
It’s important to note that it won’t attempt to fix you — rather, it will reveal behavioral patterns so that you can build upon the strengths that will benefit you and learn how to release those patterns that don’t.
However, this doesn’t come easily.
Most people are attached to their comfortable habits and behaviors — even if they hurt them — making change difficult.
That’s why self-acceptance (acknowledging where you are now) along with patience (taking things slow) is essential for achieving behavioral metamorphosis and reaching your goals.
With the help of the Enneagram, all of this is possible!
Discover Your True Essence By Uncovering Your Enneagram Personality Type
The use of the Enneagram provides an insightful way to gain understanding into yourself and your relationships with others.
This ancient system is comprised of nine distinct personality types, that when identified can help you discover your true essence.
The Strict Perfectionist type is driven by what they believe they should do and have high ethical standards as well as critiquing themselves and others.
Considerate Helpers are willing to put the needs of others ahead of their own in an effort to be loved, while Competitive Achievers prioritize goals and status over emotional involvement.
The Intense Creative seeks out dramatic situations and wants to feel special, while Quiet Specialists place importance on peace and an emotionless approach to processing the world’s demands.
Loyal Skeptics tend to worry about worst-case scenarios and doubt their own power and that of others, meanwhile Enthusiastic Visionaries view life’s possibilities as infinite rather than predetermined by commitment.
Boss types have a need for control often enjoying mental or physical sparring matches while anyone classified as an Adaptive Peacemaker has difficulty saying no or making decisions since all options appear appealing.
As no one type is definitively obvious it’s important to take a moment for calm reflection where you can ask yourself which description resonates most deeply with you, allowing you to further explore who you truly are as well as unlocking potential for growth through this wisdom.
Self-Awareness: The Key To Successful Leadership
In today’s workplace, effective leadership is no longer defined solely by technical competency.
Increasingly, self-awareness plays an even more important role in one’s success as a leader.
Research has found that having a strong understanding of oneself helps boost confidence and creativity which ultimately create stronger teams and more profitable companies.
Self-awareness means going beyond automatic responses to allowing oneself to get to know himself or herself better.
It requires seeing the mind as something that can be trained and focused through things like meditation, not just something to be reacted upon.
To develop this form of self-awareness, Jim McPartlin recommends starting with just mindful breathing and then focusing on something for ten breaths without judging yourself or what you may feel or think while doing it.
The basics of self-awareness also revolve around cultivating a desire to learn every day, honoring commitments (even when it means saying no) and choosing a team carefully.
Furthering the practice of being present in all aspects will allow one to gain respect from colleagues which will result in them performing better overall.
Clearly, cultivating self-awareness is paramount for anyone hoping to become an effective leader within their team or organization.
The Power Of Balancing Your Three Centers Of Intelligence For Core Activation
If you want to be at your best, you have to make sure that your three centers of intelligence – heart, head and gut–are in balance.
According to The Enneagram at Work by Kieran McPartlin, having a balanced approach between logic, action and emotion is essential for “core activation” or being able to access our authentic self.
For example, McPartlin had the opportunity to meet the one and only Julia Child at an event for her 90th birthday.
He observed that she seemed totally aligned with all three forms of intelligences – her kitchen operations (action), her curiosity (mind) and her love for good food (emotion).
To reach this level of balance requires some kind of daily practice such as his exercise referred to as “The Pause”.
During “The Pause” we stop what we are doing and tune into our centers of intelligence.
We ask ourselves these questions – What do I think? How do I feel? What can I do? Breathe deeply while leaning into the center that is not being expressed as much.
In addition to this practice daily meditation can help support us in maintaining a balanced approach every day so we can access our best selves.
4 Steps To Giving And Receiving Effective Feedback And Mentorship As A Leader
Giving and receiving feedback and mentorship is an incredibly important part of being a great leader.
When giving feedback, following a four-step model can help make it less scary and more effective.
First you should observe the behavior without judgment, then interpret it while giving the person the benefit of the doubt.
Thirdly, recognize your own emotions towards the situation and lastly state what you need clearly.
Mentoring too is important in order to hone in one’s leadership skills and strengthen their core.
To do this one must become aware of their mentee’s Enneagram type, although not necessarily fully understand it as that could lead to boxing them in.
Through mutual awareness you will be able to have meaningful conversations that will ultimately result in a better working relationship.
Use The Enneagram To Overcome Fear And Succeed In Leadership Through Humor, Self-Awareness, And Transcending Failure
Facing fear is an unavoidable part of life and public speaking is one of the most common anxieties.
But as a leader, addressing an audience has become essential – so it’s important to find ways to manage fear and failure in order to effectively present oneself.
The Enneagram is the perfect system for understanding your fears, weaknesses, and strengths and can help you effectively command any room.
One example of such a tool available from the Enneagram is the ability to tap into humor, self-awareness, and other Enneagram types to manage fear and failure.
Just like Harry Potter’s spell “Riddikulus” transformed his worst nightmares into humorous forms, we too can take our fears of speaking in public or failure in general and tackle them on our own terms by recognizing them clearly then focusing on transforming their menacing aura into moments that make us smile.
Another example is realizing that many aspects of our everyday “failures” don’t even need serious attention – such as getting fired or missing out on a promotion – so there’s no sense in beating yourself up over something which can be addressed with a bit of tinkering here or there but not necessarily requires major outburst or rumination.
Instead direct your focus towards compassionate contemplation mixed with forward-thinking energy – two things that are naturally amplified when tapped into using methods from all nine Enneagram Type personalities.
Lastly, it may be worth considering how changing your perspective when it comes to failures could actually ultimately lead to more successes – just like with McParlin who found success even though he got fired from his position as a hotel general manager after switching his point of view and seeing this moment as an opportunity rather than a hindrance!
By tapping into your three centers of intelligence – comprising practice compassion in your Heart Brain, use Head Brain rationally contemplate what happened, and fire up Gut Brain motor move forward – while also taking along resources such as tools present within each type personality offered by the Enneagram – you’re sure to have more successful experiences even within failures themselves!
Applying The Enneagram To Conflict Resolution: Understanding And Releasing Your Patterns For Improved Leadership
Conflict in the workplace is common, and if left unchecked can have serious consequences.
It’s often caused by differing value systems, varying levels of competitiveness, and even mismatched opinions.
But the single largest cause is usually differences in pattern expression, which can lead to misunderstandings and miscommunication.
Recognizing and releasing your own patterns is an important first step in diffusing conflict and fostering collaboration.
Take a detached look at your behavior patterns – do you naturally exhibit different behavior depending on the situation? How might that be affecting the way you interact with others?
By understanding how to recognize your good and bad self, you’ll be able to effectively mediate conflicts before they become too serious.
George Rodrigue’s Blue Dog paintings serve as a great example – when Tiffany’s blue she’s being her good self, but when she’s red she exhibits her less desirable behaviors.
Everyone has their own version of Tiffany – both good and bad sides – so practice paying attention to what each side looks like for you to avoid negative reactions or actions in a tense situation.
You should also tap into this idea of inner observation when attempting to understand different perspectives on a team or in any collaborative effort.
The Enneagram has three subtypes (or instincts) that can help provide clarity: self-preservation (driven by a need for security), social (focused on belonging in groups) and one-to-one (concerned with intimacy or friendships).
Keep an eye out for these stances as they may give clues as to why someone else holds their position on a certain issue or problem.
Making changes within ourselves without knowing if others will follow suit takes effort and patience – but it pays dividends when it comes to improving leadership skills and strengthening collaborations!
By recognizing and releasing your patterns, you’ll be better equipped to diffuse conflict instead of fueling it further.
Wrap Up
In the end, it’s important to remember that learning to lead starts with managing yourself and self-awareness.
The Enneagram is a great tool for getting in touch with your core strengths and blind spots, but remember that your patterns don’t define you – you can use them to serve you if you take the time and effort to understand them.
In addition, it’s also a good idea to actively engage in introspection in order to develop further in both your professional and personal life.
Lastly, one of the most important steps when developing as a leader is being able to understand what everyone on your team goes through by “walking in their shoes”.
No matter how senior of a position you are in, don’t be afraid of doing some hard work – it will help foster an environment of mutual awareness, trust and respect among all team members.
