Are you frustrated when people don’t see things your way? Are you ever surprised when you listen to other’s perspectives and realize how different they are from your own? Here’s how an Enneagram Type 1 leader learned to appreciate others’ perspectives.
Black and White
Enneagram Type 1s are in the Intuitive Center of the Enneagram, and their intuition serves as a compass giving them a strong sense of right and wrong. For Type 1s, most issues come down to a dichotomy and which side is “right” seems clear and obvious to them.
Focus on Feelings
For most Enneagram types, the next highest number tends to be the hardest dynamic to access. For Type 1, that dynamic is the feelings-focused Type 2. Type 2s want to build emotional connections with others—feelings are central to relationships and decision making. Type 1s tend to minimize feelings and put much higher emphasis on principles and facts. This tendency can cause people’s feelings to be a blind spot for Type 1.
Self-Awareness
Each Enneagram type has a blind spot. By simply being aware of our blind spot, we can work to consciously ensure that we are taking measures to avoid missteps that might arise from the blind spot. Along their path of integration, Type 1s have access to the dynamic of Type 4—the Internal Feeling type. When not overwhelmed with a sense of frustration, other feelings can emerge for Type 1. By exploring their own feelings about issues, they can start to appreciate the feelings of others.
Nine Perspectives
Once you understand that the Enneagram provides a framework for nine distinct perspectives, you can train yourself to appreciate all nine styles—seeing through other’s eyes. Type 1s who learn the power of the Enneagram model can incorporate the system into the set of principles they use to intuit the world. Doing so can move them from the black and white world of dichotomy to a much more nuanced view of the world with 9 distinct perspectives.
Where are you on your personal journey of self-discovery? How has your journey helped you understand and embrace your own style and the styles of those around you? How have you incorporated style diversity into your life?
[Video Transcript]
Are you frustrated when people don’t see things your way? Are you ever surprised when you listen to other’s perspectives and realize how different they are from your own?
I walked into Chris’s office and as usual his desk was decorated with many neat stacks of documents—spreadsheets, contracts, graphs—each stack representing one of the many projects that he was working on.
Chris always has a lot of balls in the air, which is why I felt bad asking him for a favor.
I had just completed the first draft of my book Teamwork 9.0 and planned to have a person of each Enneagram Type review the book. Chris was my go-to person for Enneagram Type 1.
When asked, he lit up and was eager to review it, and I was so grateful for his willingness to do that.
Chris and I had been using the Enneagram together for a while.
He was fascinated with how you could use it to understand other’s perspectives, their intrinsic motivations, and their distinct approaches to problem solving—and how those approaches could be so different from his own.
Chris is as confident decision maker; he tends to see things in black and white and has a strong sense of the right thing to do.
He’d found it frustrating when people didn’t share his perspective, which seemed so obvious to him.
These differences were most acute when matters involved people’s feelings, which he could tend to overlook.
The Enneagram allowed him to understand his own inclination to minimize feelings and also cracked open his understanding of how absolutely central feelings could be for some people.
After Chris read the draft of the book, we sat down together so that I could collect his thoughts. He had a long list of areas for improvement—I would’ve expected nothing less from Chris!
After going through everything, he become very reflective and went on to share his personal revelation of how the world was not black and white; and how each Enneagram style represented a perspective that was legitimate and correct in its own right. The Enneagram had helped him appreciate the validity and importance of all nine perspectives.
He was also grateful that with this understanding he no longer experienced the same levels of frustration with others that he once did.
Where are you on your personal journey of self-discovery? How has your journey helped you understand and embrace your own style and the styles of those around you? How have you incorporated style diversity into your life?
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