The Subtypes at Work, Part II
By Mario Sikora
(Copyright 2005/Mario Sikora. All rights Reserved. This article originally appeared in the November 2005
issue of "The Enneagram Monthly.")
In order for any information to be valued in the business world, it has to be
“actionable.” That is, you have to be able to do something useful with it. Part I of this
article, which appeared in last month’s issue of the Enneagram Monthly, I gave some
background on the subtypes. This article addresses the way that understanding of
the subtypes can be used to improve performance and relationships in the
workplace. Specifically, this article will focus on job selection, leadership, team
building, and building rapport with others.
First, a brief recap:
There are three fundamental instinctive drives that influence our values and inspire
our actions: the self-preservation drive, the social drive, and the sexual drive. One of
these drives is dominant and we tend to focus more of our energy around it than the
other two. These drives, in a sense, are the basis of an independent typology
because they lead to observable, consistent, and predictable behaviors. Combined
with the Enneagram of personality, these drives are referred to as subtypes or
variants because people of the same Ennea-type will be noticeably different in ways
related to their dominant instinctive drive. Thus, there is a Self-Preservation Subtype,
a Social Subtype, and a Sexual Subtype of each personality type.
By Mario Sikora
(Copyright 2005/Mario Sikora. All rights Reserved. This article originally appeared in the November 2005
issue of "The Enneagram Monthly.")
In order for any information to be valued in the business world, it has to be
“actionable.” That is, you have to be able to do something useful with it. Part I of this
article, which appeared in last month’s issue of the Enneagram Monthly, I gave some
background on the subtypes. This article addresses the way that understanding of
the subtypes can be used to improve performance and relationships in the
workplace. Specifically, this article will focus on job selection, leadership, team
building, and building rapport with others.
First, a brief recap:
There are three fundamental instinctive drives that influence our values and inspire
our actions: the self-preservation drive, the social drive, and the sexual drive. One of
these drives is dominant and we tend to focus more of our energy around it than the
other two. These drives, in a sense, are the basis of an independent typology
because they lead to observable, consistent, and predictable behaviors. Combined
with the Enneagram of personality, these drives are referred to as subtypes or
variants because people of the same Ennea-type will be noticeably different in ways
related to their dominant instinctive drive. Thus, there is a Self-Preservation Subtype,
a Social Subtype, and a Sexual Subtype of each personality type.
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The Social subtype tends to thrive when the organization is struggling to standardize interpersonal
relationships, identify its space in the market and form its strategic identity. They may struggle, however,
with standardization of business processes or become bored when a business and its internal and
external identity have become fixed.
Understanding that the instinctive drives can be associated with predictable weaknesses does not
excuse the lack of development in these areas or ignoring their importance. I often deal with struggling
leaders who resist change by complaining that their subordinates or the business environment are
demanding something that is not naturally a part of their character. My response is that they had better
reach down inside and find that quality or develop those skills, or they won’t be leaders for very long.
Teambuilding
Ropes courses, scavenger hunts, and other role playing activities that are very popular in the
corporate world and they can be useful for building camaraderie, but camaraderie is not the same as
effectiveness. If you want an effective team, hire mature, competent people with the skills necessary for
the job and a fundamental ability to interact with others; provide them with a clear, concise objective that
is emotionally and intellectually resonant with them; and exercise strong leadership to manage disputes,
remove obstacles, and enforce accountability.
Understanding the Ennea-types is invaluable to making teams more effective because it enhances the
ability to effectively interact with others and resolve conflict. At a basic level, if I understand the habitual
behaviors of my style and how they affect others, I can modify them so they are less abrasive; if I
understand the root of your habitual behaviors, I can exercise compassion and empathy and not fall into
the trap of thinking that you are malicious, irrational, or just plain nuts. Of course, put more positively,
understanding Ennea-type also helps us to leverage the strengths represented on the team—we can
turn to Ones and Sixes to root out problems, Fives and Nines to add balance and calm, etc.
(As a short aside, I’ve heard Enneagram people talk about trying to get somebody of each type on a
team. This is absurdly impractical. Members of both intact and ad hoc teams should be chosen based on
competence and ability to cooperate, not to create a full spectrum of type. It does help, however, to
know what perspectives are missing on a team so that the group can ensure that they get considered.
For example, if there are no Sixes or Ones on a team, it is imperative that someone consciously play the
Devil’s Advocate role that those types do so well.)
Understanding the subtypes is also valuable, both for the team members and the team’s leader.
The people on any team have two agendas—achieving the team’s stated goals (develop and sell the
world’s greatest widget) and satisfying their own, usually unstated, values. Our subtype has a significant
influence on those values and therefore shapes our unstated agendas. At the most basic level, a self-
preservation subtype will be focused on their own security and well-being, a social subtype will be
focused on their status within the group, and a sexual subtype will be focused on the drawing attention
of valued others to themselves.
comfortable, for the Socials to understand their place in the group, and for the Sexuals to get attention.
We can be more sensitive and understanding of the acting out that can happen on a team and make
sure that everyone’s needs are being addressed. Addressing these needs mitigates anxiety and hidden
agendas cause interpersonal friction and straying from the teams goals so they can effectively reduces
defensiveness, allowing people to get back to achieving the team’s stated goals. Team leaders manage
conflict and group focus.
should be particularly sensitive to the impact of the instinctive drives and proactively ensure that
everyone’s needs for security, status, and attention are met. They should also be alert to when these
hidden agendas cause interpersonal friction and straying from the teams goals so they can effectively
manage conflict and group focus.
Building Rapport
An “organization” is a collection of people who have come together in a defined way to achieve a
common goal. In order for an organization to be effective, these people must interact in effective ways.
They need not necessarily like each other, but they must at least tolerate each other, communicate
clearly, and find each other pleasant enough to justify returning to the office every day. The people who
are most effective in organizations are often those who have the ability to build rapport with a broad
range of others—to find ways to connect in meaningful ways, to find shared values, and come to some
degree of shared purpose.
The corporate training industry is brimming with programs on skillful dialogue, influencing others,
active listening, etc., and many of these courses are useful and help in the development of necessary
skills and techniques. These skills and techniques, however, often require some degree of conscious
application and we tend to forget them when we are either acting on autopilot or under stress (which is
most of the time). Also, these behaviors tend to be affected—we can generally tell when someone is
“active listening” to us and it feels slightly disingenuous.
By being consciously aware of the subtypes, however, it is easy to find genuine common ground with
others. Part I of this article described the apparent predictable “stacking” of the instinctive drives—the
self-preservation subtype has a secondary social instinct, the social subtype has a secondary sexual
subtype, and the sexual subtype has a secondary self-preservation instinct. The beauty of this
predictable stacking is that everyone will share an instinctive concern with everyone else. We tend to
build rapport with people around that shared concern. We build rapport most easily with people of the
same subtype (socials with socials, etc.). However, with people of a different subtype we tend to settle in
on common ground in these patterns: Self Pres’s and Socials will connect in the Social realm; Self-Pres’s
and Sexuals will connect in the Self-Pres realm; and Sexuals and Socials will connect in the Sexual
realm. A simple way to build rapport with someone is to determine what your shared instinct is and steer
the direction into that area. After we have established an initial rapport with someone, our future
conversations will naturally go back to those areas as a default comfort zone. The rapport will become
habitual and comfortable rather than forced and manufactured.
Please note that we are talking about fairly superficial interactions here: simple rapport with the
people you work with. This is not to say that people will only connect in the realms of the subtypes—
relationships are far more complicated than this and revolve around shared experiences, values, biases,
interests, outlooks, and so on. That said, start paying attention to the things you talk about with people
and see if there are predictable patterns in your relationships.
This article is, by necessity, a cursory overview of the topic of the subtypes and the workplace. It
would be possible to go into great detail about how each subtype mixes with each Ennea-type in both
complimentary and contradictory ways in each of the four areas we discussed. For example, we could
look at how Nines of each subtype lead differently from each other—Self-Pres Nines are the most
introverted and conflict averse; male Sexual Nines are the most assertive and outgoing of the three and
can superficially look like Threes or Eights (female Sexual Nines tend to have a style that is more
nurturing); Social Nines are generally focused on consensus building and managing by walking around.
We could also look at what circumstances trigger the secondary instinctive drive to be more visible, etc.
Space does not allow for such detail.
The Enneagram of Personality is a profound and powerful tool for understanding the tapestry of our
work lives and many other aspects of human nature. A rich understanding and appreciation of the
subtypes adds a great deal of richness and detail to that tapestry. Start paying attention and you will be
amazed at what you see.
_________________________________
Footnotes:
(1)The articles mentioned here are also available in pdf format by sending an email to
Mario@mariosikora.com.
(2)I am not proposing that these three things are the only elements of Enneagram theory—there are
many—the holy ideas, vices, virtues, etc.—and many of them are useful for self understanding. These
are merely the basic elements of the construct I present to my clients.
relationships, identify its space in the market and form its strategic identity. They may struggle, however,
with standardization of business processes or become bored when a business and its internal and
external identity have become fixed.
Understanding that the instinctive drives can be associated with predictable weaknesses does not
excuse the lack of development in these areas or ignoring their importance. I often deal with struggling
leaders who resist change by complaining that their subordinates or the business environment are
demanding something that is not naturally a part of their character. My response is that they had better
reach down inside and find that quality or develop those skills, or they won’t be leaders for very long.
Teambuilding
Ropes courses, scavenger hunts, and other role playing activities that are very popular in the
corporate world and they can be useful for building camaraderie, but camaraderie is not the same as
effectiveness. If you want an effective team, hire mature, competent people with the skills necessary for
the job and a fundamental ability to interact with others; provide them with a clear, concise objective that
is emotionally and intellectually resonant with them; and exercise strong leadership to manage disputes,
remove obstacles, and enforce accountability.
Understanding the Ennea-types is invaluable to making teams more effective because it enhances the
ability to effectively interact with others and resolve conflict. At a basic level, if I understand the habitual
behaviors of my style and how they affect others, I can modify them so they are less abrasive; if I
understand the root of your habitual behaviors, I can exercise compassion and empathy and not fall into
the trap of thinking that you are malicious, irrational, or just plain nuts. Of course, put more positively,
understanding Ennea-type also helps us to leverage the strengths represented on the team—we can
turn to Ones and Sixes to root out problems, Fives and Nines to add balance and calm, etc.
(As a short aside, I’ve heard Enneagram people talk about trying to get somebody of each type on a
team. This is absurdly impractical. Members of both intact and ad hoc teams should be chosen based on
competence and ability to cooperate, not to create a full spectrum of type. It does help, however, to
know what perspectives are missing on a team so that the group can ensure that they get considered.
For example, if there are no Sixes or Ones on a team, it is imperative that someone consciously play the
Devil’s Advocate role that those types do so well.)
Understanding the subtypes is also valuable, both for the team members and the team’s leader.
The people on any team have two agendas—achieving the team’s stated goals (develop and sell the
world’s greatest widget) and satisfying their own, usually unstated, values. Our subtype has a significant
influence on those values and therefore shapes our unstated agendas. At the most basic level, a self-
preservation subtype will be focused on their own security and well-being, a social subtype will be
focused on their status within the group, and a sexual subtype will be focused on the drawing attention
of valued others to themselves.
comfortable, for the Socials to understand their place in the group, and for the Sexuals to get attention.
We can be more sensitive and understanding of the acting out that can happen on a team and make
sure that everyone’s needs are being addressed. Addressing these needs mitigates anxiety and hidden
agendas cause interpersonal friction and straying from the teams goals so they can effectively reduces
defensiveness, allowing people to get back to achieving the team’s stated goals. Team leaders manage
conflict and group focus.
should be particularly sensitive to the impact of the instinctive drives and proactively ensure that
everyone’s needs for security, status, and attention are met. They should also be alert to when these
hidden agendas cause interpersonal friction and straying from the teams goals so they can effectively
manage conflict and group focus.
Building Rapport
An “organization” is a collection of people who have come together in a defined way to achieve a
common goal. In order for an organization to be effective, these people must interact in effective ways.
They need not necessarily like each other, but they must at least tolerate each other, communicate
clearly, and find each other pleasant enough to justify returning to the office every day. The people who
are most effective in organizations are often those who have the ability to build rapport with a broad
range of others—to find ways to connect in meaningful ways, to find shared values, and come to some
degree of shared purpose.
The corporate training industry is brimming with programs on skillful dialogue, influencing others,
active listening, etc., and many of these courses are useful and help in the development of necessary
skills and techniques. These skills and techniques, however, often require some degree of conscious
application and we tend to forget them when we are either acting on autopilot or under stress (which is
most of the time). Also, these behaviors tend to be affected—we can generally tell when someone is
“active listening” to us and it feels slightly disingenuous.
By being consciously aware of the subtypes, however, it is easy to find genuine common ground with
others. Part I of this article described the apparent predictable “stacking” of the instinctive drives—the
self-preservation subtype has a secondary social instinct, the social subtype has a secondary sexual
subtype, and the sexual subtype has a secondary self-preservation instinct. The beauty of this
predictable stacking is that everyone will share an instinctive concern with everyone else. We tend to
build rapport with people around that shared concern. We build rapport most easily with people of the
same subtype (socials with socials, etc.). However, with people of a different subtype we tend to settle in
on common ground in these patterns: Self Pres’s and Socials will connect in the Social realm; Self-Pres’s
and Sexuals will connect in the Self-Pres realm; and Sexuals and Socials will connect in the Sexual
realm. A simple way to build rapport with someone is to determine what your shared instinct is and steer
the direction into that area. After we have established an initial rapport with someone, our future
conversations will naturally go back to those areas as a default comfort zone. The rapport will become
habitual and comfortable rather than forced and manufactured.
Please note that we are talking about fairly superficial interactions here: simple rapport with the
people you work with. This is not to say that people will only connect in the realms of the subtypes—
relationships are far more complicated than this and revolve around shared experiences, values, biases,
interests, outlooks, and so on. That said, start paying attention to the things you talk about with people
and see if there are predictable patterns in your relationships.
This article is, by necessity, a cursory overview of the topic of the subtypes and the workplace. It
would be possible to go into great detail about how each subtype mixes with each Ennea-type in both
complimentary and contradictory ways in each of the four areas we discussed. For example, we could
look at how Nines of each subtype lead differently from each other—Self-Pres Nines are the most
introverted and conflict averse; male Sexual Nines are the most assertive and outgoing of the three and
can superficially look like Threes or Eights (female Sexual Nines tend to have a style that is more
nurturing); Social Nines are generally focused on consensus building and managing by walking around.
We could also look at what circumstances trigger the secondary instinctive drive to be more visible, etc.
Space does not allow for such detail.
The Enneagram of Personality is a profound and powerful tool for understanding the tapestry of our
work lives and many other aspects of human nature. A rich understanding and appreciation of the
subtypes adds a great deal of richness and detail to that tapestry. Start paying attention and you will be
amazed at what you see.
_________________________________
Footnotes:
(1)The articles mentioned here are also available in pdf format by sending an email to
Mario@mariosikora.com.
(2)I am not proposing that these three things are the only elements of Enneagram theory—there are
many—the holy ideas, vices, virtues, etc.—and many of them are useful for self understanding. These
are merely the basic elements of the construct I present to my clients.
The Self-Preservation Subtype is habitually focused on issues of “nesting and nurturing”—food,
shelter, physical well-being, etc.
The Social Subtype is habitually focused on issues of “orientation to the group”—fitting in, social
order, group hierarchies and dynamics, etc.
The Sexual Subtype is habitually focused on issues of “attracting and mating”—appearance,
desirability, accumulation of resources desired by others, sex, etc.
Clarifying the Terms
Much has been written about the Ennea-types and work in the past few years, but little has been
presented about how the subtypes affect our work lives. This is a large gap in the literature and I
propose that understanding the impact of the instinctive drives at work is at least as important as
understanding the types. To understand why, we must clearly understand the connection between
the two. It helps to take a moment to clarify a few terms:
Personality Type—A “personality type” is an arbitrary classification of a complex of characteristics
that distinguishes one group of individuals from another. Person A and Person B have similar traits
and demonstrate certain consistent patterns; therefore we classify them as the same “type.” Persons
C and D, however, share a different set of similar traits and patterns and are thus a different “type.”
The Enneagram of Personality is often used in ways that are limited to typology or the cataloging
of common traits (for example, “Type One is the moral, principled, perfectionist and critical type…”).
The ability to see the trait patterns in oneself and in others is useful in many ways; the understanding
of what inspires these trait patterns is even more useful, which leads us to the second term:
“strategy.”
Strategy—As was written in Part I of this article, in our book, “From Awareness to Action: The
Enneagram, Emotional Intelligence and Change,” Bob Tallon and I identified the “Enneagram of
Strategies;” that is, an understanding of the Enneagram as a system of strategies rather than a mere
catalogue of traits. Merriam-Webster Online defines “strategy” as “an adaptation or complex of
adaptations (as of behavior, metabolism, or structure) that serves or appears to serve an important
function in achieving evolutionary success.” The nine strategies we wrote about are thematic
approaches to interacting with our world. For whatever reason, we prefer one strategy and tend to
rely on it significantly more than on the others, sometimes to our detriment (Tallon and I refer to this
as a “preferred strategy”). Thus, Ennea-Type Eight is one who habitually prefers the strategy of
“striving to be powerful” over the other eight strategies and then exhibits traits consistent with the
logic of the preferred strategy. Eights get into trouble when they overdo their striving to be powerful,
doing all those less-than-endearing things that we Eights can do.
The focus on the strategies rather than the traits liberates the Enneagram from the inconsistencies
and contradictions often found in the literature and workshops. Prominent Enneagram authors have
written things such as “Nines like gardening and camping” and—I’m not making this up—“Fives tend
to bathe less frequently than others.” Such comments are a) not empirically supportable and b)
undermine the credibility of the system when people come across nature-abhorring Nines or Fives
who bathe daily. While the traits vary and overlap (I’ve met Sevens, for example, who like to garden
and who avoid conflict—another trait associated with Nines), the value in the Enneagram is in
understanding how the traits relate back to the strategy.
This concept is important to understand in order to explain the trait inconsistencies within a given
Ennea-type and trait overlap between different types: The trait patterns seen in each Ennea-type are
behaviors, attitudes, and ideas that are logical and consistent with our preferred strategy—the
thematic approach to satisfying our values. Thus, Eights can be aggressive, bossy, energetic, loud,
etc., because these are traits that are logically consistent with the strategy of striving to be Powerful.
People of other Ennea-types (a Sexual Six or Seven, for example) may exhibit some of these same
traits, but they manifest these traits for different reasons—to fulfill the strategies of striving to be
Secure and Excited, respectively).
Each of the nine strategies is a method for satisfying our survival needs, i.e., achieving
“evolutionary success.” In other words, it is the way we go about satisfying our instinctive drives.
One way to understand the way the traits, strategies and instincts fit together is to see the traits as
the leaves and branches of a tree, the preferred strategy as the trunk, and the instinctual drive as
the roots. By extension, our “personality type” is the categorization of the traits related to our
preferred strategy, our “subtype” is the categorization related to our preferred instinctive drive, and
the type/subtype combination (such as “Social Two”) is a categorization of the interplay of the two.(2)
So how can knowledge of the subtypes be actionable in the world of work? The remainder of this
article will look at four ways: job selection, leadership, team building, and building rapport.
Job Selection
I have often been asked questions such as “I am a Five; what career direction should I pursue?” or
“We have an opening for a marketing director; what personality type should we hire?” These
questions set my teeth on edge because they miss the point. They are not only irrelevant; the second
is discriminatory and unethical if not illegal.
The correct answer to “What career choice should I make?” is “the one that most closely matches
your skills and aptitudes and will be the most emotionally, intellectually, and/or financially rewarding.”
Regarding candidate selection, Ennea-type should never be used as a qualifier or disqualifier for a
job. The Enneagram of Personality simply does not address aptitude for particular roles. I have met
Fours who are great sales people and Sevens who are lousy sales people; Eights who are great
leaders and Eights who are tyrannical jerks.
Understanding your Ennea-type can, however, prepare you for the potential roadblocks you will
encounter in whatever role you choose. For example, if you are a Two, whether you are a CEO, a
salesman, or an administrative assistant, you will run into trouble when you overdo your preferred
strategy of striving to be connected. You will violate boundaries, you will become emotionally involved
in decisions that need clarity and detachment, you fill lash out at those close to you because you feel
unappreciated. Other Ennea-types will have different, but equally predictable, patterns when they go
off track. Our Ennea-type does not predict what job will make us happy; it predicts some of the ways
we will struggle in whatever job we are in and points a way to resolving our struggles. (In the
December 2003 issue of EM, I described typical derailers for each of the Ennea-types in an article
titled, “Off the Plateau: The Enneagram and Executive Coaching.”1)
Our subtype can predict additional ways we will go off track because each subtype also has a set
of predictable strengths and weaknesses when it comes to the workplace. It is important to be aware
of a number of factors when it comes to job selection and career choices: interests and natural
talents, education and training, past experiences, etc. These factors are independent of Ennea-type
and subtype. However, understanding one’s subtype can help you understand the underlying value
system that influences these factors. Table One shows what each subtype is naturally interested in
and what areas they may struggle to pay enough attention to. When making career decisions it is
important to remember that your chances of success and fulfillment are higher if you make choices
consistent with the needs of your dominant instinctive drive and avoid those related to your least
prominent drive.
TABLE ONE: Subtype Strengths and Weaknesses
shelter, physical well-being, etc.
The Social Subtype is habitually focused on issues of “orientation to the group”—fitting in, social
order, group hierarchies and dynamics, etc.
The Sexual Subtype is habitually focused on issues of “attracting and mating”—appearance,
desirability, accumulation of resources desired by others, sex, etc.
Clarifying the Terms
Much has been written about the Ennea-types and work in the past few years, but little has been
presented about how the subtypes affect our work lives. This is a large gap in the literature and I
propose that understanding the impact of the instinctive drives at work is at least as important as
understanding the types. To understand why, we must clearly understand the connection between
the two. It helps to take a moment to clarify a few terms:
Personality Type—A “personality type” is an arbitrary classification of a complex of characteristics
that distinguishes one group of individuals from another. Person A and Person B have similar traits
and demonstrate certain consistent patterns; therefore we classify them as the same “type.” Persons
C and D, however, share a different set of similar traits and patterns and are thus a different “type.”
The Enneagram of Personality is often used in ways that are limited to typology or the cataloging
of common traits (for example, “Type One is the moral, principled, perfectionist and critical type…”).
The ability to see the trait patterns in oneself and in others is useful in many ways; the understanding
of what inspires these trait patterns is even more useful, which leads us to the second term:
“strategy.”
Strategy—As was written in Part I of this article, in our book, “From Awareness to Action: The
Enneagram, Emotional Intelligence and Change,” Bob Tallon and I identified the “Enneagram of
Strategies;” that is, an understanding of the Enneagram as a system of strategies rather than a mere
catalogue of traits. Merriam-Webster Online defines “strategy” as “an adaptation or complex of
adaptations (as of behavior, metabolism, or structure) that serves or appears to serve an important
function in achieving evolutionary success.” The nine strategies we wrote about are thematic
approaches to interacting with our world. For whatever reason, we prefer one strategy and tend to
rely on it significantly more than on the others, sometimes to our detriment (Tallon and I refer to this
as a “preferred strategy”). Thus, Ennea-Type Eight is one who habitually prefers the strategy of
“striving to be powerful” over the other eight strategies and then exhibits traits consistent with the
logic of the preferred strategy. Eights get into trouble when they overdo their striving to be powerful,
doing all those less-than-endearing things that we Eights can do.
The focus on the strategies rather than the traits liberates the Enneagram from the inconsistencies
and contradictions often found in the literature and workshops. Prominent Enneagram authors have
written things such as “Nines like gardening and camping” and—I’m not making this up—“Fives tend
to bathe less frequently than others.” Such comments are a) not empirically supportable and b)
undermine the credibility of the system when people come across nature-abhorring Nines or Fives
who bathe daily. While the traits vary and overlap (I’ve met Sevens, for example, who like to garden
and who avoid conflict—another trait associated with Nines), the value in the Enneagram is in
understanding how the traits relate back to the strategy.
This concept is important to understand in order to explain the trait inconsistencies within a given
Ennea-type and trait overlap between different types: The trait patterns seen in each Ennea-type are
behaviors, attitudes, and ideas that are logical and consistent with our preferred strategy—the
thematic approach to satisfying our values. Thus, Eights can be aggressive, bossy, energetic, loud,
etc., because these are traits that are logically consistent with the strategy of striving to be Powerful.
People of other Ennea-types (a Sexual Six or Seven, for example) may exhibit some of these same
traits, but they manifest these traits for different reasons—to fulfill the strategies of striving to be
Secure and Excited, respectively).
Each of the nine strategies is a method for satisfying our survival needs, i.e., achieving
“evolutionary success.” In other words, it is the way we go about satisfying our instinctive drives.
One way to understand the way the traits, strategies and instincts fit together is to see the traits as
the leaves and branches of a tree, the preferred strategy as the trunk, and the instinctual drive as
the roots. By extension, our “personality type” is the categorization of the traits related to our
preferred strategy, our “subtype” is the categorization related to our preferred instinctive drive, and
the type/subtype combination (such as “Social Two”) is a categorization of the interplay of the two.(2)
So how can knowledge of the subtypes be actionable in the world of work? The remainder of this
article will look at four ways: job selection, leadership, team building, and building rapport.
Job Selection
I have often been asked questions such as “I am a Five; what career direction should I pursue?” or
“We have an opening for a marketing director; what personality type should we hire?” These
questions set my teeth on edge because they miss the point. They are not only irrelevant; the second
is discriminatory and unethical if not illegal.
The correct answer to “What career choice should I make?” is “the one that most closely matches
your skills and aptitudes and will be the most emotionally, intellectually, and/or financially rewarding.”
Regarding candidate selection, Ennea-type should never be used as a qualifier or disqualifier for a
job. The Enneagram of Personality simply does not address aptitude for particular roles. I have met
Fours who are great sales people and Sevens who are lousy sales people; Eights who are great
leaders and Eights who are tyrannical jerks.
Understanding your Ennea-type can, however, prepare you for the potential roadblocks you will
encounter in whatever role you choose. For example, if you are a Two, whether you are a CEO, a
salesman, or an administrative assistant, you will run into trouble when you overdo your preferred
strategy of striving to be connected. You will violate boundaries, you will become emotionally involved
in decisions that need clarity and detachment, you fill lash out at those close to you because you feel
unappreciated. Other Ennea-types will have different, but equally predictable, patterns when they go
off track. Our Ennea-type does not predict what job will make us happy; it predicts some of the ways
we will struggle in whatever job we are in and points a way to resolving our struggles. (In the
December 2003 issue of EM, I described typical derailers for each of the Ennea-types in an article
titled, “Off the Plateau: The Enneagram and Executive Coaching.”1)
Our subtype can predict additional ways we will go off track because each subtype also has a set
of predictable strengths and weaknesses when it comes to the workplace. It is important to be aware
of a number of factors when it comes to job selection and career choices: interests and natural
talents, education and training, past experiences, etc. These factors are independent of Ennea-type
and subtype. However, understanding one’s subtype can help you understand the underlying value
system that influences these factors. Table One shows what each subtype is naturally interested in
and what areas they may struggle to pay enough attention to. When making career decisions it is
important to remember that your chances of success and fulfillment are higher if you make choices
consistent with the needs of your dominant instinctive drive and avoid those related to your least
prominent drive.
TABLE ONE: Subtype Strengths and Weaknesses
Leadership
Another common question is “what type makes the best leaders?” If only it were that easy to identify
potential leaders! In “Leadership and the Enneagram”(1), I pointed out that successful leadership
could be defined as “the act of influencing others to effectively achieve a desired result consistently
and over time.” Personality plays a role in determining one’s leadership style, but effective leadership
is about the result rather than the leader’s style. There are effective and ineffective leaders of every
personality style and the value of understanding Ennea-type is, again, in predicting roadblocks.
Understanding subtype also helps predict roadblocks and potential shortcomings. Table Two indicates
the predictable strengths and weaknesses of each subtype when it comes to leadership.
As a leader, it is important to be aware of how your dominant instinct affects your focus and attention.
You must learn to leverage your strengths and apply them consciously rather than unconsciously.
(One of the secrets to effective leadership is to know what you are good at and, as often as possible,
apply those talents to areas where they will be of some use.) At the same time, you must be sensitive
to the leadership demands of your environment and ensure that you are not neglecting critical areas
because they are not natural strengths of your subtype. (As a leader you must develop skills in these
areas if the tasks cannot be delegated to someone else.)
For example, the Sexual subtype naturally thrives in entrepreneurial or volatile conditions. Their
natural charisma can became a rallying point for the organization and they can be very inspirational. In
more sedate or sober circumstances, however, the Sexual subtype’s self-promotion can be distasteful
to others.
The Self-preservation subtype tends to thrive in circumstances where order, process, and caution
are called for, but they can struggle when charismatic and bold leadership is required.
TABLE TWO: Subtype and Leadership Strengths and Weaknesses
Another common question is “what type makes the best leaders?” If only it were that easy to identify
potential leaders! In “Leadership and the Enneagram”(1), I pointed out that successful leadership
could be defined as “the act of influencing others to effectively achieve a desired result consistently
and over time.” Personality plays a role in determining one’s leadership style, but effective leadership
is about the result rather than the leader’s style. There are effective and ineffective leaders of every
personality style and the value of understanding Ennea-type is, again, in predicting roadblocks.
Understanding subtype also helps predict roadblocks and potential shortcomings. Table Two indicates
the predictable strengths and weaknesses of each subtype when it comes to leadership.
As a leader, it is important to be aware of how your dominant instinct affects your focus and attention.
You must learn to leverage your strengths and apply them consciously rather than unconsciously.
(One of the secrets to effective leadership is to know what you are good at and, as often as possible,
apply those talents to areas where they will be of some use.) At the same time, you must be sensitive
to the leadership demands of your environment and ensure that you are not neglecting critical areas
because they are not natural strengths of your subtype. (As a leader you must develop skills in these
areas if the tasks cannot be delegated to someone else.)
For example, the Sexual subtype naturally thrives in entrepreneurial or volatile conditions. Their
natural charisma can became a rallying point for the organization and they can be very inspirational. In
more sedate or sober circumstances, however, the Sexual subtype’s self-promotion can be distasteful
to others.
The Self-preservation subtype tends to thrive in circumstances where order, process, and caution
are called for, but they can struggle when charismatic and bold leadership is required.
TABLE TWO: Subtype and Leadership Strengths and Weaknesses