Your Enneagram Type Provides a Personalized Path to Growth
As the leader of your business, your job is to become the strategic CEO your business needs you to be. But did you know that the Enneagram provides a personalized growth path for each of the personality types?
This video outlines the 4 specific ways you can use your Enneagram type to grow as a leader.
1. See Your Unconscious Patterns
Step 1 is to get really clear on your patterns and build your observational muscles to see them at play in your life. As much as we are all unique, there is a consistent pattern to human nature that makes this predictable and knowable. And once you see them, you can understand why these seemingly random behaviors or beliefs are actually a reinforcing structure that is attempting to keep you safe.
Knowing your Enneagram type gives you a shortcut to seeing these patterns play out.
Here is an Instagram post outlining the patterns and habits for each Enneagram type, but you can also check out the following blog posts to explore this more in-depth:
2. Use your Enneagram type’s wings
The second way you can use your Enneagram type to grow as a leader is in through your wings. The wings of your type are the types immediately adjacent to your dominant type on the circle of the symbol. And they offer you an opportunity to widen your perspective and increase your emotional intelligence.
A lot of people who study the Enneagram get stuck in that first step of studying the patterns of each type and categorizing people. And that isn’t how the Enneagram is intended to be used…
The goal is not to myopically look at what makes you tick. The goal is to grow into a fully expressed version of you. To feel like you have more choices available to you instead of always operating on default. To let go of those patterns and limitations of your ego and operate with more freedom so you can trust your instincts.
You will be a more strategic leader when you are able to operate from your essential and wise self more often. You will be more resilient and a more creative problem solver.
An aside:
When people are new to the Enneagram system, sometimes they trip over trying to identify “Which wing am I?” 🦋
Neither, love. And both. Ideally you are able to access both of your wings, because each offers it’s own set of resources that are helpful at different times. But it is perfectly normal to have more access to one wing than the other.
When I’m coaching my clients, we look at ways to balance access to each of the wings so that we can draw on qualities that seemed inaccessible before. Leaning on one side or the other expands your ability to see different options that are available to you.
(Heads up - accessing the higher side of your wings helps you can reach your full potential faster!)
I’ve included an example of how this works using Enneagram 1 in this video. But in my programs, you get access to this information for all of the Enneagram types.
As an entrepreneur, you are stretched in a ton of directions. I haven’t worked with another system that is better at helping you grow both your mental flexibility and emotional intelligence at the same time.
3. Use your lines and arrows
The types connected to your dominant type across the symbol also provide additional opportunities to grow. These are referred to as lines or arrows in Enneagram literature. Basically, your dominant Enneagram type is in relationship with two other types - your stress point, and your growth point.
Sometimes you default unconsciously to a line because the strategy of your dominant type stops working. And other times, you consciously reach for the higher aspects of a line when you feel safe enough to grow to another level of self-actualization.
One of the lines your dominant type is connected to can be used to help you release stress. Some people call this the security point and it is found by following the line of integration.
😎 This point can be an antidote for the fixations of your type. You will have access to the higher side of this type when you feel safe and secure.
🌈 The direction of stress relief and integration for each type guides you toward what really fulfills you and helps you realize your potential.
🥷 This line may also provide clues for things you relegated to your shadow because they weren’t accepted when you were younger. You may need to reintegrate these things on your path to wholeness.
The other line you are connected to can be used to provide clues to growing into your essential self. Some people call this the stretch point or the disintegration line.
🏋️♀️ This point can help identify key challenges you need to master on the path to becoming more fully yourself.
🥴 You reach for the strategies of this line when the usual strategies of your dominant type get pushed as far as they can go and it isn’t working anymore.
🙆♀️ Reaching toward the high side of this point can help you balance out the less effective tendencies or reactions of your core type.
😬 (You might also act out the lower side of this point unconsciously or compulsively.)
When you are running a business, the goal is always expansion. More clients, more money, more impact.
But you can’t get to where you want to go doing the same old, same old. (Otherwise, you’d already be at that next level.)
In order for your business to grow, you have to expand to a new level of leadership, a new level of creativity, and a new level of receptivity so that you can really meet your clients where they are at and innovate in your space.
When I am coaching entrepreneurs, we use the lines to find clues to leaving behind cycles you can’t seem to get out of. Or when you know there is a better way, but are struggling to see things from a different perspective. Entrepreneurship is one of the hardest challenges you will face and you have to overcome all of the ways your ego tries to play it safe or limit your growth in order to create something that will really last.
4. Lean into the polarity of your type
Another way to use your Enneagram type to grow is through the use of polarities. Some teachers refer to this as the vice to virtue journey, and each type has a specific pull of opposites.
Each Enneagram type has a unique journey from the default stance of your heart to a more expanded way of being in the world that opens you up to more joy, more creativity, and more connection.
What is a polarity? 🤷♀️
Po · lar · i · ty (noun)
the state of having two opposite or contradictory tendencies or aspects
Think of a polarity like an infinity symbol on it’s side: ∞
You oscilate between the two sides naturally in the course of living your life. Both are an expression of the life force that animates us - and they are partners in our evolution.
One side is a lower expression of your emotional center that tends to run on default. Some teachers refer to this as your vice or passion of your Enneagram type.
Think of one side as an actual vice - an emotional state that is constricted as you try to hold things together. (Sometimes we are better served by holding it all together. It’s a good way to manage risk and stay safe.) This can also be thought of as the ways that each Enneagram type tries to avoid vulnerability.The other side is the higher expression of your essential self when you are free of the constriction of personality. And this side is referred to as the virtue of your Enneagram type.
This side is a space where you will find more wellbeing and love. Leaning into your virtue can point the way to relaxing the default contraction of your heart and allowing energy to flow more freely.
You can use this side as your North ⭐️ or an indicator of when you are operating from your expanded self. It can also be used as an antidote when you find yourself hanging out in the lower expression of your heart.
Knowing the polarity that is inherent to your personality type provides a shortcut that can get you unstuck in a situation - it can help you find your way to being able to see things from a different perspective, or to make more informed decisions. Because when you are operating from that lower place, you tend to be reactive and not as strategic or insightful as you are capable of being.
If you are a solopreneur doing everything you can to grow your business but find that you’re business has been flat for the last few months, you are likely in a growth plateau. Consider this an invitation to up-level your skills so that you can increase your capacity to be strategic, make more impact, build that momentum in your business - and even find more ease and flow in the process.
You can think of this last growth path as leaning into your type’s contradiction, becoming more receptive, and allowing the transformation to happen as you expand.
(Check out my Instagram post for the passion and virtues for each of the 9 enneagram types.
🖥 In my coaching programs, I break this down for my clients so it feels simple and actionable.
🤷♀️ If you are not sure of your Enneagram type, send me a message and I’ll help get you sorted.
🕵️ If you’d like to work together to help you identify your unconscious patterns or better understand how they might be holding you back and limiting your ability to see things clearly, reach out.
Source: These passion and virtue descriptions are adapted from the Chestnut Paes Enneagram Academy and the Integrative Enneagram.