Leadership Isn’t About Learning New Skills
“To develop leadership is less about learning new skills and more about unlearning habits and breaking free from limiting mindsets we have already acquired.”
Peter Hawkins
Leadership professor, management consultant, Author “The Wise Fool’s Guide to Leadership”
If you’ve studied the Enneagram, you know that each of us views the world in 9 different ways and that our personalities are not only made up of what we are born with, but also shaped by how we were raised. The messages we received in childhood, whether conscious or unconscious, became central to how we viewed the environment around us. The behaviors we exhibited became our adaptive strategies for surviving. It was how we felt we needed to operate in the world.
As we get older, these thoughts and behaviors become part of our unconscious, natural “programming,” that we repeat over and over again no matter what situation we are in. As leaders, that “programming” becomes our “default mode” for how we interact with our teams. The problem is, some of those behaviors aren’t serving us anymore. In fact, they are limiting us. Our challenge as leaders is breaking free from that early childhood programming and creating new behaviors that would benefit and support the teams we lead.
In childhood:
Enneagram Ones felt they couldn’t make mistakes.
As leaders, quality control can be key to producing a great product. However, the push for perfection is not always realistic and can result in missing deadlines, unwanted stress and unreasonable guidelines.
Enneagram Twos felt they couldn’t have any needs of their own.
Not taking care of their own needs can leave Two leaders feeling exhausted, overburdened, and eventually resentful of people they support for taking up too much of their time, energy, and attention.
Enneagram Threes felt they needed to succeed at everything they did.
Three leaders can get too focused on winning and executing all the time that they miss key input from others or overwork to the point of physical and mental exhaustion.
Enneagram Fours felt they couldn’t be too happy.
Four leaders have a large capacity for depth of feelings, however, staying in melancholy feelings may delay processes if they insist on their feelings or the feelings of others being validated and understood.
Enneagram Fives felt they needed to be independent and non-intrusive.
Over time, too much independence can result in isolation and being out of touch with reality and colleagues.
Enneagram Sixes felt they couldn’t trust themselves.
Six leaders can get stuck in questioning and analysis to the point of not taking any action.
Enneagram Sevens felt they needed to always be upbeat, light-hearted, and happy.
At times, Seven leaders can be too enthusiastic as a way of avoiding any bad news. Sometimes, facing bad news is required so they can be dealt with effectively.
Enneagram Eights felt they needed to be strong and tough.
Being strong and tough can result in some people being intimidated by Eight leaders. Their lack of awareness can make them seem unapproachable and therefore, disconnected with some colleagues.
Enneagram Nines felt their opinions didn’t matter and that they needed to go with flow.
Nine leaders are great at building consensus, however, they may have trouble with voicing their concerns when needed in order to get the job done.
An example:
As an Enneagram Type 7, Andrew, a marketing manager, is very optimistic and energetic. He is good at generating new ideas and can be very enthusiastic at the early stages of a project. However, he would often cause issues for his team by excitedly coming up with 7–10 new initiatives in every meeting and get excited about each of them. His team often felt pressured, believing they had to work on each of his ideas. They were overwhelmed and soon dreaded every meeting. After Andrew learned the Enneagram, he was able to understand that coming up with new ideas and his excitement about each of them wasn’t helping the team as he thought it would, but rather was causing them more problems. Going forward, Andrew was much better about communicating which ideas he expected the team to take action on.
As Andrew showed, in order to be an effective leader, you need to have a clear sense of how you operate and be able to recognize when your “early programming” gets in the way of your team’s success.
The Enneagram is a tool that can be used to discover how we are “programmed” or operate. We can also use it to understand how our “programming” affects those around us. By studying the Enneagram, we become more aware of how certain behaviors aren’t serving us anymore and how our strengths can become liabilities. We can then use that self-awareness to decide which behaviors we want to continue to engage in and what behaviors we may want to change or be more mindful of. Without this type of self-awareness we are unable to break free from our “default mode” which limits us from becoming effective leaders.
