Enneagram 101
I get asked all the time what Enneagram is. Google Enneagram and you’ll go down a rabbit hole of information. Here are some easy-to-understand basics.
What is the Enneagram?
It’s a map of transformation.
The Enneagram is a framework for knowing ourselves and others. Nine core types define and describe our identity: who we are and why we do what we do. It helps answer three age-old questions:
who are you?
why are you here?
how will you serve?
The Enneagram is an ancient symbol over 2,000 years old. This symbol is made up of a circle, nine core types, and lines that come in and out of the types. Each type has its own core desires, fears, motivation, defence mechanisms, values, worldviews—and so much more. To use any map, we need to know where we are on it. The Enneagram shows you where you are and multiple pathways for growth.
The Enneagram can be applied to all facets of life and work including:
Leadership
Entrepreneurship
Parenting
Teams, groups and communities
Systems change
So much more! Where there are humans is an application for Enneagram
What the Enneagram is not:
A simple personality test
A woohoo made-up tool
A box to put you or others in
The Enneagram symbol
Many scholars and schools of thought provide a variation on the Enneagram symbol. I use the one from Integrative9, a comprehensive Enneagram training provider whose practitioners have studied the tool for decades.
The main parts of the Enneagram:
Core type: there are 9
Centres of Intelligence: these are feeling, thinking and action. We have all three but dominate in one.
Lines: think of these as highways of growth and stress > where we go at best and worst
Wings: think of these as best friends who support you to be your best
Subtypes: these are self-preserving, intimate, and social. Subtypes help explain why people of the same type are different!)
Some facts:
The symbol is over 2,000 years old and has been found as far back as 600 BCE
Although the exact origin is unknown, evidence supports a long and complex history spanning culture and space with roots stemming from diverse mathematical, philosophical, and spiritual traditions.
No one owns the Enneagram. It’s open source!
The term "Enneagram” comes from the Greek words "ennéa" meaning nine and "gramma" meaning "figure."
The nine personality types, as we know them, originate from the work of Bolivian philosopher Oscar Ichazo (1931-2020).
The Enneagram is still evolving! It continues to be studied around the world to understand people, teams, communities, and global systems
Truthbomb: you are not your type.
This is a bit of a mind spin, hear me out. You are not your type. Your type is your identity expression - who you’ve needed to be to get through life.
How does that happen?
You are born in your essence. AKA your gifting, strengths, radiance, lightforce. Around age 5, we get a sense of self, as in we understand that we have a “self”, that we are a person with our own identity. All the input around us that tells us we are too much — too loud, too quiet, too sensitive, too questioning — too too too — That too becomes our type.
Simply put, our Enneagram type is our essence/Lightforce distorted, a protective armour that we wear to navigate through life’s ups and downs.
So that person you think you are? Default to? Think you can’t change? Not true. The work we are in — as people, entrepreneurs and leaders — is to return to our essence. Our gifting and strengths. That’s where we shine. The Enneagram provides the map to get there.
Take an Enneagram test
There are many tests out there. This is the most comprehensive and accurate test I know and use in my work