At a recent lunch with a friend he recommended I take an enneagram assessment. He found it be really useful in better understanding himself both professionally and personally. I took a Gallup’s StrengthsFinder assessment in late 2016 and enjoyed the high level feedback it provided. (I wrote about the results here.) So I said ‘why not?’ and bought an online assessment. I used Integrative9 for the test. (link). I think it was around 150 questions and took about a half hour to complete.
Overall, what I found to be particularly intriguing is how the assessment was able to ‘verbalize’ some of the feelings and self-reflection that I’ve started to uncover; almost shining a light on a few areas in my personality that I haven’t been able to pinpoint or fully delve into just yet.
In total the report is 23 pages long. I’ve selected only two sections to share below with some commentary mixed in highlighted in red.
3 – Competitive Achiever – Threes are “doers” and tend to be practical, task-oriented and project a polished persona or image. They are competitive and will make sacrifices to achieve their goals and appear successful. This resonates a ton. They risk becoming overstretched or workaholic and may resort to deception or expediency to win. I’m curious how they define ‘deception’. Not sure I agree with that word. At higher integration, they work towards self-acceptance and authentic influence, connecting heart and hands.
- Ambitious: You strive to be the best at whatever you take on. You believe in your ability to succeed.
- Efficient: You know how to do things in a way that is efficient and productive. You are resourceful.
- Adaptable: You adjust willingly to different situations, people or environments adapting to achieve your goals.
- Driven: Your energy and determination gets things done and pushes others to perform at their best as well.
- Results-Oriented: Setting and achieving goals is natural for you, your focus is on the end-result.
Motivation
This style stems from the motivational need to outshine others and be the best. If you’re not first, you’re last. As an Ennea 3 you are likely to value achievement and as a result efficiency, results and image are important to you. You strive for success and you are willing to adapt in order to get what you want.
At your best others experience you as hard-working and effective. You offer the gifts of clarity to yourself and the world around you. At your worst your over-expressed need to appear successful may lead others to experience you as self-important and inconsistent, invested in self-worth built on what you do, rather than who you are. Yikes.
A deeper understanding of the SX – 3
You are energetic, enthusiastic, charismatic and generous, a loyal and trusted friend, partner or
colleague. As the ultimate cheerleader, you focus on what is good for the family, group or team and measure your success through the success of those around you. I bring the energy!
While you tend to be competent and influential in
your own right, you prefer to work in support of
others. As a one-to-one Three, you get your sense of achievement from helping others to be successful, working hard to build strong relationships with the people that are important to you.
Your energy, competence and charisma are focused on projecting an image of being good and perfect for the family or team. You find it difficult to promote yourself, preferring to believe that pleasing and helping others is the correct way to earn love and approval. This is big and I think a reason why I’ve missed out on pay raises and promotions. Need to fight more for myself.
You tend to be a great leader of teams and people, as you use your personal power and charisma to attract talented people to you and then focus your energy and action towards helping them reach their goals. Seeing your people succeed is the reward for your
tireless support. This was important for me to see as think about my career progression.
Your efforts to be perfect and fit others’ needs attracts others to seek out your help and support, and yet you may seem insecure at times, competing for the attention and affection of those closest to you. You may find that you take criticism to heart, especially from close relationships, as it triggers your fears of disappointing others and threatens to reveal your vulnerability. Too true. Being aware of this is my first step at not taking things so personally.
Status symbols are less important to you than
enhancing your personal attractiveness as a partner. You believe in the concept of an “ideal” partner, and you may try to change your partner to fit your mental picture, or wait for an ideal partner with whom you would live “happily ever after.” You want to be seen as the “best lover” or “perfect” spouse,” and place a high expectation on yourself to be good, perfect and helpful to prove that you are worthy of being loved.
While you find it easy and pleasurable to support and connect with others, you sometimes have a hard time connecting with yourself. You are likely to struggle with being disconnected from your feelings, true self and even from those very relationships that are so important to you.
Whilst being well-liked and physically attractive, you may have low self-esteem, finding it difficult to be authentic in your being, your expression and feeling. You tend to disconnect from deep emotions and experiences, particularly those you feel would be uncomfortable or disturbing to those around you. Difficult for me to comment as, per the assessment, I don’t like to hear this kind of feedback. 😀
Have you taken an enneagram assessment? What did you think of your results?
2W3 myself! Enneagram has been fascinating in understanding people, especially partners, and has helped me to understand John Michael a bit more (8w7). Helps to understand core drivers for people and personality tendencies and the wing is super important too! A 3w2 and a 3w4 can look quite different from one another. Thanks for sharing! For the spark note version of understanding all 9, I recommend different IG accounts that will give the quick highlight.
Very cool! It’s been really neat to learn about this space some more. The test I took didn’t provide a preferred Wing but fun to read and take a guess.