Use This Timeless Tool to Understand Yourself and Your Team
The Enneagram of Personality, Enneagram for short, is a map of the human psyche, which it classifies into nine interconnecting personality types, or enneatypes. The word ‘enneagram’ comes from the Greek words ennea, meaning nine, and gramma meaning written.
Enneagram’s origins are lost in the mists of time, as we’ll explain. With that, Enneagram-based personality tests are common practice today in recruitment and selection in various countries. Enneagram tests are very popular in modern businesses, including Fortune 500 companies, because, like other personality tests such as Myers Briggs, they help managers to know how candidates tick, and what benefits they offer the company.
We’ll look later at how the Enneagram ties in with the Myers-Briggs Type Index. Now here’s a quick look at what this article explores:
- What are the 9 Enneagram Types?
- Powerful Enneagram types you should know about: Enneagram #1 #2, #6, and #9
- Is the Enneagram Biblical?
- Which Enneagram type is the rarest?
- How do I find my Enneagram number?
- Which Enneagram type is the most accurate?
- Free Enneagram test
- Best free Enneagram test
- What is an Enneagram test with wings?
So, let’s get started!
What Are the 9 Enneagram Types?
Here is the Enneagram:
The 9 Types are:
#1: Perfectionist: Rational, idealistic: principled, purposeful, and self-controlled.
#2: Caregiver: Caring, interpersonal: demonstrative, generous, people-pleasing, and possessive.
#3: Performer: Success-oriented, pragmatic: adaptive, excelling, driven, and image-conscious.
#4: Individualist: Sensitive, withdrawn: expressive, dramatic, self-absorbed, and temperamental.
#5: Investigator: Intense, cerebral: perceptive, innovative, secretive, and isolated.
#6: Loyalist: Committed, security-oriented: engaging, responsible, anxious, and suspicious.
#7: Enthusiast: Busy, fun-loving: spontaneous, versatile, distractible, and scattered.
#8: Challenger: Powerful, dominating: self-confident, decisive, willful, and confrontational.
#9: Peacemaker: Easygoing, self-effacing: receptive, reassuring, agreeable, and complacent.
Each of us is a unique mixture of his or her basic Enneagram type, and our ‘wing,’ one of the two types next to it on the circle. Moreover, your basic type dominates your overall personality, while the ‘wing’ complements it and adds important, sometimes contradictory, elements. Additionally, your wing is the ‘unhealthy’ side of your personality and shows up when you’re anxious or distressed, upset or distracted.
Powerful Enneagram Types To Know About:
Experts on this say we fluctuate constantly among the healthy, average, and unhealthy traits that make up our personality type. As well as the characteristics in the previous list, you need to know that:
- 1’s are methodical but can become moody and irrational when they’re stressed, behaving like type 4’s. However, when it’s all good, angry or critical 1’s become more spontaneous and joyful.
- Healthy 2’s are empathetic, sincere, and warm-hearted. They’re friendly, generous, and self-sacrificing. But watch them, because they can also be sentimental, flattering, and people-pleasing. In fact, unhealthy 2’s are manipulators. They attend to others – often intrusively – in order to maintain their claim on them. They are extremely possessive of their relationships and like to remind others what they’ve done for them.
- 6’s are committed and security-oriented. You want them on the team, they’re reliable, hard-working, responsible, and trustworthy. They’re great troubleshooters, foreseeing problems and fostering cooperation. However, they can also become defensive, evasive, and anxious, running on stress while complaining about it. They can be cautious and indecisive, but also reactive, defiant, and rebellious. They typically have problems with self-doubt and suspicion.
- 7’s, the Chilean psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo, who helped reboot Enneagram in the 1970s, refers to as ‘The Narcissist.’ So, if you work with a 7, maybe read our article on Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
- 8’s, the Challenger, can be intimidating. Assertive and hard-working, they’re determined to control their fate.
- 9’s, the Peacemaker, is motivated by the need to keep the peace, connect with others, and avoid conflict. Generally, 9’s are kind, gentle, reassuring, supportive, loyal, and nonjudgmental in relationships.
Is the Enneagram Biblical?
Well, it’s almost that old! Enneagram’s origins go back many centuries. Some experts attribute it to the Desert Fathers, the early Christian hermits whose ascetic practices led to the formation of Christian monasteries and nunneries. Others link it to Jewish Kabbalists, Sufi mystics, the Pythagoreans, the Chaldeans, and other ancient groups.
These days, people mainly use the Enneagram based on the writings of the Bolivian philosopher and spiritual teacher Oscar Ichazo from the 1950s, and the work of Chilean psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo from the 1970s.
Naranjo’s theories were also influenced by George Gurdjieff’s teachings about personality and the Fourth Way tradition in the first half of the 20th century. Since then, people like the late Richard Riso and Russ Hudson at the Enneagram Institute in Stonebridge NY, have researched and developed these ideas into modern Enneagram tests, which we’ll come to.
Which Type is the Rarest?
Enneagram.bz says 5, the Investigator, is the rarest type, just 4.8% of their sample. Additionally, another website, Rarest.org says 7% of men are 5’s, versus 3% of women. Furthermore, when they aren’t realising their potential, 5’s fear being useless, helpless, and unable to function successfully. However, Rarest.org says this deep insecurity also encourages them to seek knowledge that isn’t commonplace and achieve great things.
Famous 5’s include Albert Einstein, Vincent Van Gogh, Salvador Dali, Stephen Hawking, and James Joyce. It’s easy to think of some modern business leaders who are probably 5’s. This type might not fit comfortably into your team, but give them a chance and they’ll do extraordinary work.
How Do I Find My Enneagram Number? Answer – Take an Online Test
Enneagram has obvious applications for recruitment and selection, and for self-discovery and personal development. Determining your core number could be just the beginning of the journey.
Figuring out your wings – the types on either side, which show up when you’re outside your comfort zone – could be hugely beneficial, say in planning a career change. Read what we say here about the different types, then take a test.
There are plenty of tests online. The consensus is, that their accuracy varies according to the individual’s preferences and experiences.
One of the most popular is the Enneagram Institute’s Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator (RHETI) test, based on the work of Richard Riso and Russ Hudson, who developed the way people use Enneagram today. But there are plenty of others.
Which Enneagram Test is The Most Accurate?
The Enneagram Universe test is widely regarded as one of the most accurate Enneagram tests available, with 180 phrases you answer on a scale from “almost never” to “almost always.”
Are There Free Enneagram Tests?
Yes, there are. The Eclectic Energies Enneagram test, available at eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/test, provides a free test, again based on Riso and Hudson’s work. Their website offers detailed descriptions of each Enneagram type, and insights into personal growth, based on your results.
Which is the Best Free Enneagram Test?
Personality Path claims their Enneagram test is the most accurate, freely available, and renowned personality test, with over 1.5m taken. Moreover, they say it’s trusted and used by many Fortune 500 companies, consistently scoring a 4.9 out of 5-star customer rating.
What is an Enneagram Test With Wings?
As we’ve stated, your Enneagram wings are the types on either side, which show up when you’re outside your comfort zone. The Enneagram tests we’ve mentioned will reveal these.
Get The Most Out of This – Draw The Enneagram
If you’re going to invest time in this, you should really do some self-reflection and explore the different types in depth. Here’s the thing. The Enneagram’s structure looks complicated, but it helps to understand it if you sketch it yourself.
Here’s how to draw the Enneagram. Firstly, draw a circle and mark nine equidistant points on its circumference. Then, give each point a number from 1 to 9, with 9 at the top. Each point represents one of the nine basic personality types.
The nine points on the circumference are also connected by the inner lines of the Enneagram. Draw an equilateral triangle connecting 3, 6, and 9. Draw lines connecting the remaining six points as follows: 1 connects with 4, 4 with 2, 2 with 8, 8 with 5, 5 with 7, and 7 with 1. These six points form an irregular hexagram.
Now It Gets Interesting…
The Enneagram is a ‘3 x 3’ arrangement of nine personality types in three Centres. Types 8, 9 and 1, are the Instinctive Centre. 2, 3 and 4 are the Feeling Centre, and 5, 6, and 7 are the Thinking Centre, as in the diagram below.
The three personality types in each of these Centres have similar positive and negative aspects. For instance, type 4 has unique positive and negative aspects around feelings; consequently, it’s in the Feeling Centre. Similarly, type 8 has positive and negative aspects around its instinctual drives, thus it’s in the Instinctive Centre.
Moreover, the experts say there’s also an internal structure within each personality type. This structure is the continuum of behaviours, attitudes, defences, and motivations formed by the nine Levels of Development which make up each personality type. Additionally, you can read more about this online.
We’re All Born With a Dominant Enneagram Type, but Don’t Worry Too Much About It!
Here’s the thing. The traits in the description of your basic type won’t necessarily apply to you at the time. So don’t feel too down about it.
How Does Myers Briggs Fit Into All This?
As we said at the start, Enneagram offers an alternative to Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality tests. Essentially, Enneagram is all about working out which one’s more natural for you, your “thinking” function, or your “feeling” function.
We often write on this blog about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). As regular readers will know, MBTI helps make Carl Jung’s theory of psychological types understandable and useful in people’s lives. The essence of the theory is, that much seemingly random variation in our behaviour is actually quite orderly and consistent. You can explain it as due to fluctuations in the ways we prefer to use our perception and judgment at different times.
Dr A. J. Drenth, founder and owner of Personality Junkie, defines these correlations between MBTI types and Enneagram personality types:
- Enneagram 1 ‘Reformer correlates with MBTI’s Judging (J) types: However, Enneagram 1 functions as a ‘moral change agenst,’ Feeling (F) and Perceiving (P) types sometimes also test as Enneagram 1s.
- Enneagram 2 ‘Helper’ correlates with MBTI’s Feeling (F) types: These guys are typically more empathetic and nurturing than their ‘Thinking’ counterparts.
- Enneagram 3 ‘Achiever’ correlates with MBTI’s Extraverted (E) and Thinking (T) types. Dr Drenth says the essence of Enneagram 3 is characteristically masculine, involving a strong drive for status and distinction through achievement. Some women may test as 3s, but most 3’s are males. This correlates with roughly two-thirds of males on Myers-Briggs testing as Thinkers (T), versus 1 in 4 women.
Extroversion and Introversion Come Into the Enneagram, Too
Extravert 3’s are more image-conscious and concerned about securing approval. Judging (J) might also contribute to achievement-striving, but 3’s are also described as quite adaptable, something associated with MBTI’s Perceiving (P.) Birth order may play a role, with research indicating that first-borns tend to be more achievement-oriented than younger siblings.
- Enneagram 4 Individualist correlates with MBTI’s INFP and INFJ.
- Enneagram 5 Investigator correlates with INTP and INTJ.
- Enneagram 6 Loyalist correlates with MBTI’s Introverted (I) and Sensing (S) types. Dr Drenth says 6 is ‘an anxious type,’ and their behaviours and attitudes can be seen as attempts to quell their anxiety. This ties in with the generalisation that introverts tend to be more anxious and self-conscious than extroverts.
- Enneagram 7 Enthusiast correlates with Extraverted (E) and Perceiving (P) types. 7’s are marked by their preference for extraversion, as well as Extraverted Intuition or Extraverted Sensing. This ties in with 7 being the ‘wing’ of type 6. 7’s enjoy finding new ideas and solutions.
- Enneagram 8 Challenger correlates with MBTI’s ENTJ, and ESTJ. Like 3s, Enneagram 8 is characterised by what Dr Drenth calls a ‘strong masculine essence.’ 8s are more likely to be Thinking (T) types, and he expects them to exhibit Myers Briggs’s E, T, and J preferences.
- Enneagram 9 Peacemaker correlates with INFP and ISFP. Drenth says they’re slow to engage with the outside world and, hence more likely to be Introverted. Moreover, as “Peacemakers,” they’re apt to be Myers Briggs INFP Personality types, preferring to adapt and avoid conflict whenever possible. Drenth says this type has a “more feminine essence.”
And Finally: Go ‘Figure’ It Out – Use Enneagram to Change Your Life
As we said when we were talking about Enneagram tests, Enneagram has obvious applications for recruitment and selection, and for self-discovery and personal development. Finding your core Enneagram number could be just the beginning of a journey of discovery. Figuring out your Enneagram wings – the types on either side, which show up when you’re outside your comfort zone – could be hugely beneficial, say in planning a job change.
By understanding your Enneagram type, you can identify patterns in your behaviour that you may not have otherwise noticed, and grow and develop as a person. You may find you have Increased self-awareness, improved relationships, and greater empathy and understanding. Just think about what that could do for your career!
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Updated: April 2024 by Charles Smith
