Someone recently confided in me:
“No matter what I try with my team, there’s this constant rumble of tension that won’t go away. It’s stressing me out. What am I missing?”
Frustrating, right? Team dynamics are rarely straightforward. Even genuine efforts to connect can cause friction unintentionally.
Working in highly diverse teams, differences can be a double-edged sword. You’ve got a variety of valuable perspectives, but also a great risk of conflict. The real challenge lies in understanding the unspoken issues that linger beneath the surface.
In this episode, I’ll show you how the Enneagram can shed light on these mysterious hidden dynamics. By learning more about your blind spots and the unique personalities on your team, you can see your team in a new light and watch the tension melt away.
Unveiling Team Personalities with the Enneagram
New to the Enneagram? It’s a model of nine personality type perspectives. Each has their own motivations, gifts and challenges. I wonder if you can spot some of these in your Operations team:
- Type 3: The Achiever is goal-oriented and great at driving successful outcomes. They excel in competition and motivating the team to meet KPIs but may get too focused on external validation.
- Type 6: The Loyalist brings deep commitment to reliability and consistency. They provide stability and crisis management, though they may struggle with anxiety and overthink potential challenges.
- Type 9: The Peacemaker excels at creating a harmonious environment and mediating. They make sure all team members feel heard but can be indecisive and have trouble asserting their own ideas.
- Type 1: The Reformer brings a keen eye for detail and integrity. They’re advocates for continuous improvement and process optimization but may become overly critical and inflexible.
- Type 4: The Individualist contributes unique perspectives and creative problem-solving skills. They’re great at thinking outside the box but may struggle with feeling different from others or inadequate.
- Type 2: The Helper is the relational glue, supporting collaboration and team morale. They understand team’s needs but might struggle with setting boundaries, so their own needs are met.
- Type 8: The Challenger is a natural leader, with strength and decisiveness. They drive bold strategies and keep the team on track, though they may struggle with vulnerability and become confrontational.
- Type 5: The Investigator brings a wealth of knowledge and analytical skills. They’re great at finding efficiencies. Highly independent, they might struggle with collaborative engagement.
- Type 7: The Enthusiast is adaptable and energizes the team with optimism. They’re often the early adopters, spontaneous and exploratory. They may struggle with focus and tackling challenges head-on.
Your Enneagram Type: A Key to Better Team Leadership
Next, let’s explore how the Enneagram helps reveal hidden team dynamics. Ops Leader, you don’t have to solve everything. Your role is to create a workplace for productive collaboration.
Using the Enneagram isn’t about labeling others. It starts with you. The first step is understanding your own perspective. Recognizing your strengths and blind spots helps you be a better leader. Let me give you an example.
I first met with someone I’ll call Andy when he was dealing with ongoing conflict between two key team members. He felt stuck between a rock and a hard place, unable to dissolve the tension between them.
We began by identifying his Enneagram perspective. With a Type 9 Peacemaker perspective, he could easily see both points of view. His default preference is to avoid conflict, to keep things sailing smoothly. So, we started by building his confidence and conflict resolution skills.
Case Study: Resolving Team Conflict with Enneagram
Our conversation led to a team Enneagram workshop, which turned out to be enlightening for the two people in perennial conflict. One had a Type 5 perspective, known as the Investigator, while the other had a Type 2 perspective, known as the Helper.
Investigators and Helpers approach work with different priorities. Helpers are driven by a desire to connect with and support others. Investigators value independence, knowledge, and privacy. Here’s what happened:
- In meetings, the Investigator’s quiet demeanor would leave the Helper concerned.
- The Helper’s frequent offers to assist felt intrusive to the Investigator, who would politely decline.
- The Helper, undeterred, would try harder, inviting the Investigator to lunch, which prompted further withdrawal.
- The cycle continued to spiral.
- The Investigator saw this all as a waste of time, wishing the Helper would stop intruding.
- Meanwhile, the Helper felt hurt and ignored, and thought of the Investigator as kind of a jerk.
- This low-level tension created discomfort and drag in the rest of the team, who felt stuck in the middle.
Through the workshop, by understanding these differences, they started to realize that it wasn’t personal. They began to appreciate each other’s unique perspectives and even started joking about their quirks, which lightened the mood and made the whole team breathe a sigh of relief.
This is a good example of how learning about the Enneagram can be incredibly beneficial. It helps you see situations more clearly. In this case, it helped them communicate better and collaborate more productively.
I’ll leave you with this question: What are some unspoken tensions within your team that need resolution?
As a certified practitioner of the Narrative Enneagram, I can help you create a more positive work environment, too. To learn more in a no-pressure conversation, contact me at Laura@nullYourFutureRealized.com.
You can’t stop the chaos, but you can change the game.