LEADERSHIP STYPES IN MINISTRY
& ENNEAGRAM TYPES
Twos
Your people-orientation and diplomacy serves you well with congregations and clients. You have an innate sensitivity to others’ likes and dislikes with an ability to assess gifts and growing edges. You can mirror others well for a strong connection. Twos are good organizers and lead committees to accomplish on-time and quality work. You have great gifts for presenting the organization’s outreach or services. Your positive nature and enthusiasm make you easily approachable, so be sure to establish good boundaries and set office time for self. You naturally nurture people and it is important that you have a supportive community that nurtures you. Remember to allow yourself to be nurtured by others. Receiving is a part of practicing hospitality.
Take care to be up front with any agendas. Hidden agendas and manipulation, even with the best intentions, can create misunderstanding and mistrust among employees. Because Twos want to be liked by everyone, they easily shape-shift or alter to please others. This can come across as being inconsistent. This type often finds it hard to be the person in charge because of their desire for all to be cared for and happy. Over giving or over helping is a clue that you need to spend more time alone.
Threes
Your high energy and optimism draw people to you. Your ability to get things done efficiently and competently is inspiring and sets a good example for others to follow. Initially, others can amp up their energy enough to stay with you, but not for long. Realize that your pacing is much faster than the pace of others and learn patience as others take a bit longer to complete tasks. Slow down your pace in order to connect with your own emotions. You may need to develop strategies for cultivating empathy if you notice your energy going too much toward being successful. Remember to consider feelings more than the content of a story. Oftentimes, parishioners simply want your listening ear, not quick fix. Bring presence to your doing so that you become more aligned with your own feelings. Real leadership emerges in the middle ground between being and doing, between presence and performance. Make sure that your focus on doing doesn’t get you so overextended that you don’t have time to process. You wear the role of leader well and can be the “wind in another’s sail.” However, you need others to be the wind in your sail as well.
Fours
Your creative mind and out-of-the-box approaches to problem solving and to sermon crafting/presenting can create an aura of uniqueness around you. Your image of difference can excite people and draw some parishioners to you, but may distance others. Spend some ordinary time with congregation members. Share a cup of coffee or take a walk and use your gifts of empathy to listen to their hopes and sorrows. Your comfort with emotional intensity allows your presence to be a balm when others are grieving, and you excel in rituals of beginnings (baptisms) and endings (funerals). You want your work to touch the hearts of others and you create space for heart felt connections and rituals. Since the church community is the arena where life’s deepest issues are explored, you can feel quite a home in the role of pastor.
Be aware of how you may come across when in your “withdrawing” mood and set time limits for your “moodiness” when in the office. Feel your feelings rather than express them. Your desire for all to find meaning in their lives can keep relationships intense. Remember that joy has depth as well as grief, and make space for laughter and celebrations. Times of relating and allowing the dramatic to unfold in a container of humor can be uplifting and fun.
Fives
You have a great capacity for knowing the slight details and latest information in your field of expertise. Parishioners may be impressed with your ability to pull information together and disseminate it in a solid presentation of facts, statistics and relevance to their lives. Details fascinate you and lead you into the big picture. You may need to create avenues and systems to share information to office colleagues as well as with congregation members— and to receive news, stories and information. You can find opposing viewpoints in the congregation stimulating, and at your best, can work with all to create positive change. You may discover that you enjoy digging into the enigmas of the faith and posing these in sermons or studies. Leading a study is one of your gifts and you can expect high numbers in attendance! Your quest of information and knowledge can become a substitute for emotions so be aware of your propensity to detach
To avoid seeming distant and detached, be intentional about spending time with parishioners in their homes or environments so you can develop deeper connections with others. Initiate these visits rather than waiting for invitations. Ask questions but don’t forget to share yourself. Personal stories warm the heart. Create ways that you and others share from the heart. Feeling your emotions in the moment (rather than later when you’re alone) makes you more approachable and allows your warmth to come forward. Remember that engaging can be nurturing, so practice moving forward when you feel the “call” to detach.
Sixes
Your warmth and wit attract others to you and your loyalty to a cause and to others is easily detectable. Your ability to plan well, anticipate problems and involve people makes success likely for projects you undertake. You can anticipate numerous outcomes so take care that your plans don’t keep changing with every “what if” that your mind brings forth. Notice when your over-thinking leads to confusion. During these times, try listening to the wisdom of your heart and notice what arises. Your questioning mind can be an asset when you engage with your warmth and genuine curiosity. Though questions can connect, they keep you in your head unless you allow yourself to be touched by others’ feelings that your questions may elicit. You are good at noticing the details of others lives and they feel seen by you. When you trust yourself, others easily follow.
Because your mind naturally goes to the “worst-case,” be intentional about considering best-case in planning sessions and goal-setting for the congregation and staff. Best-case creates enthusiasm that’s needed in rallying to attain goals. In pastoral care, contain your worst-case thinking and ground your listening and speaking in reality. Stay with feelings and don’t get seduced by story content. After sessions with others, find ways to release any anxiety that emerged within yourself. A brisk walk can bring the energy from the mind into the body, and this helps diminish anxiety. Your questioning mind serves you well when working with biblical texts or other sermon related material. When you use your active imagination and wit in your sermon writing, you can evoke smiles and laughter that endear people to you and to themselves.
Sevens
Your enthusiasm, high energy, and imagination quickly attract others to you. As a visionary, your quick mind offers creative options regarding numerous directions the congregation can move toward and makes for a lively conversations and office environment. Your thirst for knowledge and the “new” can create excitement and can also become exhausting for others who attempt to follow through with your ideas and new directions. Focus on completing solid plans and give attention to the details, reading emails and reports at least twice. Your tendency toward best-case and “the new” can blind you to difficulties and downsides. You may need to reframe difficult times as “an adventure” in order to see them through and learn the lessons they offer.
Your creative and integrative mind can add delight to committee meetings and worship services. Sermons may tend toward the intellectual so remember to add a feeling tone. Grief and sadness can seem confining for Sevens (whether your own or other’s). Develop ways to stay with self or other in times of sorrow. Rather than moving your energy out and forward, deepen your energy so you can feel present to the moment. You may have difficulty with people-related problems that slow down process. But there-in lies your work. Focus more on the people and the process falls into place. You can lead others to see a broader vision of themselves and reality.
Eights
You wear leadership comfortably and have a gift for making things happen. You have a quick grasp of the big picture and the ability to create step-by-step plans to accomplish goals. You think in a practical and clear manner and your confident attitude engenders confidence in others. However, your direct and assertive posture can come across as being too abrupt especially when an opposing viewpoint is offered. Notice the force and intensity of your voice and physical movements. Practice softening your tone. Lead with questions rather than opinions. Include “what if” thinkers on committees and in brainstorming sessions. Don’t be the first to speak in meetings. Slow down your response time and decision-making so that others can offer input, opinions and wisdom. When you separate yourself from your opinions, you offer a genuinely warm presence and others feel seen and heard and feel safe.
You can be prophetic and your preaching and teaching may be evocative, encouraging others toward a cause for justice. Take care not to press too hard on social consciousness issues. Add humor to lighten the intensity whether in the pulpit or a committee meeting. You live full out in an all or nothing style, so remember to rest. Don’t wait until you fall over from fatigue to take a break. Create strategies for taking care of yourself physically.
Nines
You come across as easy going and steady, getting along well with people and leading through consensus. You easily delegate and allow others to make decisions and take responsibility. Presenting the larger vision, the story of “who we are and what we are about” comes naturally for you. This story telling gets expressed through sermons as well as in relating the congregation to the community. Use this gift to encourage others to share and honor their own personal stories AND, remember to honor your own story! Because it is easy for you to merge with others’s agenda, practice focusing on your own priorities and set limits and boundaries for yourself. Take care not to merge with the congregation’ agenda for you. You cannot be all things to all people although it appears you can! Notice when you become “overly holy.” This is an indication that your type structure is in control and you’re losing connection with your own desires.
Details can be problematic for you—both in remembering them and in losing yourself. Create ways of reminding yourself about what time it is. Nines can get lost in time, easily distracted as you work out details. It is easy for you to understand a broad range of viewpoints and you mediate conflict between others well. Decision-making can be difficult when what you want differs from others. The desire for peace between you and another can lead to conflict avoidance which creates greater conflict in the future. Remember to say what’s on your mind even if this is a “no” or a differing opinion.
Ones
You lead by example, have high standards and an eye for improving. As a gifted organizer, you work well with details and want things done right. You can be quite diplomatic, saying just the right thing with exquisite timing. This is a gift when mediating conflict, in resolving problems, and in creating a good spirit among people. You take the “high road” and others often follow. Your focus on improving makes it easy for you to notice error and mistakes. In the office or in meetings, focus on what’s working well and what is being done right. Notice when your intense focus and drivenness become rigid and pleasure gets left out of work. Remember to take a break and share a laugh. Pleasantries (though you may deem them trivial) help to ease conversations into the heart of the matter and give a balance to your usual seriousness. Leave room for feelings—yours and others.
Your passion for the cause is inspiring and this flows throughout your speaking and teaching. You have a gift of moving people to act. With a strong sense of fairness, you ensure inclusivity, making space for all to be heard. You keep abreast of community issues and relate these to the congregation. You see the congregation as a part of the community, not separate than, and this serves both in mutual giving and receiving.
The Spiritual
Journey and type:
One
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