Enneagrams

I recently attended a very interesting workshop called “Conscious Leadership of Self and Others”. It uses the Enneagram as basis for the study of personality types.

The enneagram categorises people into one of nine basic personality types. Although everyone is unique, with their own personality, we each have a primary personality type, which is what motivates us to behave in certain ways. None of the personality types are better than the other, they are simply indicators of what motivates you to behave in the way you do. Each of the personality types expresses a distinctive and habitual way of thinking and emotions.

The nine personality types are outlined as follows, with identifying key personality traits.
Each of the personality types are equally useful and valid. They all help create to a balanced work environment, with each contributing different points of view and ways of seeing the world.

The Perfectionist: The Rational, Idealistic Type
Strive for perfection, are principled, purposeful, self controlled, ethical systematic, neat and methodical.

The Giver: The caring interpersonal type.
Very friendly, generous, people pleasing, sincere, warm hearted and have a wide circle of friends. Also compassionate, nurturing and like to help those they perceive as being in trouble.

The Achiever: The success oriented pragmatic type.
Adaptive, competent, excelling, driven, and image-conscious.

The Individual: The sensitive withdraw type.
Creative, expressive, dramatic, self-absorbed, and temperamental.

The Analyst: The intense cerebal type
Perceptive, innovative, secretive, analytical and isolated

The Questioner: The committed security conscious type.
Engaging, responsible, warm, anxious, and suspicious.

The Optimist: The busy fun-loving type.
Spontaneous, versatile, distractible, and scattered.

The Leader: The powerful dominating type.
Self-confident, decisive, willful, and confrontational.

The Peacemaker: The easygoing, self effacing type.
Receptive, reassuring, agreeable, and complacent.


The three centres of intelligence.The nine personalities are further grouped on the enneagram under three centres of intelligence. These are the filters through which personalities prefer to view the world. Each centre includes three personality types which share the assets and liabilities of that centre. Although we all have and can use each of these intelligences, these centres are what our personality types default to.
These are:
The instinctive centre: 8,9,1 Behave based on their gut feelings or instincts about things.
The feeling centre: 2,3,4. The primary consideration is how it makes themselves or others feel.
The thinking centre: 5, 6,7. These are the cerebal types who think things through before acting.

Wings
Each enneagram type may be influenced by the types found on either side of it. These are known as the “wings” and may influence a persons core personality type. Some people have dominant wings that influence their personality and in turn, their behaviour. This is part of what makes each of us unique.

Directions of integration and disintegration
The enneagram also shows how different situations cause personality types to typically react in particular ways. This is demonstrated on the enneagram with each personality being connected to two other personality types, showing how people react at their best and worst. Going with the arrow indicates behaviour when a personality is stressed and under pressure, and going against the arrow shows how a personality reacts when they are at their best. If interested you can link to this diagram which shows a very basic picture of an enneagram and how your behaviour changes to emulate another personality type depending on how you are feeling.

Why use an Enneagram?
Learning about the enneagram can be a useful tool in the library as a self discovery tool.
This is because if we understand ourselves, we are able to recognise the strengths and weaknesses in our personality, building on the strengths and trying to improve our weak points.

In the library work environment, as libraries are becoming more team based, understanding your own personality type, and the fact that different people are motivated by different factors and may see the world from a different perspective will enable us to understand where other people are coming from. We can draw on each others strengths and recognise the potential contributions others can make to produce better results in our work. This in turn can reduce conflict and most importantlyallow us to be happier, healthier people. This understanding can also assist in effective communication, as the enneagram tool helps you to recognise that not everyone thinks the same way, or have the same motivations, values, priorities and reactions. This can be further extended to understanding our different customers and their varying reactions to situations.