There are no rights and wrong answers, only amazing increases in self-awareness and awareness of each other.
The Enneagram is an amazing tool for allowing you to understand and accept your personality traits for the first time, recognising you as a whole person. The Pathfinder Profiler is the only accurate and reliable Enneagram online assessment that we have come across.
Our personalities are thought to be part nature/innate (the world would not work if we were all born the same!) and part nature - learned behaviour, sub-conscious constructs, habits, rules etc. The innate aspects of our personality have been termed by psychologists as our 'temperament'. The learned aspects of our behaviour and personality style tends to be part how we see ourselves and partly what everyone else observes. The learned aspects are representative of our coping strategies for life, typically learned at a very early age, which are often expressed through the filter of our innate personality type; all of this can be termed our 'ego'. Our ego often forms a mask - you might call it the 'alter-ego' - we can sometimes wear different masks depending on the situation, who we are with and how we are feeling.
Underneath the seemingly complex layers of ego is the authentic you, some people refer to it as your 'higher self'. Often, this person feels like a stranger. You were born with the potential to be that higher most authentic self. There are some who believe that our reason for existing is to have the opportunity to be that person in the physical world i.e. we are a spiritual being having and learning from a human experience. Personality I'm open to this possibility, but don't get hung up on it. Whatever your take on meta-physics, for me the important thing is to become aware of the egoic behaviour that is not representative the true you and your true potential. Such behaviour may not serve you in any other way than keeping you safely in your comfort zone, hidden behind your mask(s). LET'S GET MORE REAL!
The Enneagram itself is thousands of years old, dating back to Hippocrates, the Greek physician who first started to think of people in ‘categories’ of personality style. The word Enneagram comes from the Greek words ennea, meaning “nine” and grammos, meaning “points”. The Enneagram explores nine personality types, nine ways of experiencing the world and describes how they function and interact. Understanding and interpreting the Enneagram is part art, part science. It can take an experienced Enneagram coach quite a while to establish someone's Enneagram traits... you can never be sure that you have all the nuances properly understood.
Since becoming fascinated by the Enneagram and subsequently becoming a huge fan of it, I have tried out many different online tests and assessments, some free, some paid for. I have not been too impressed by any of them and had almost given up hope of finding one that was reliable and accurate. Then I came across the Pathfinder Profiler, which is the result of 25 years of development, and I was very happily amazed by its accuracy. Now, with Pathfinder Profiler, after 20 minutes answering the online multiple choice questions, you will have a very accurate view of your personality type.
The Pathfinder Profiler report is just the start. As an introduction to your Enneagram profile, it is designed to be used stand alone, in its own right, without the need for coaching. The main benefit from it are the insights that it gives you into:- the strengths and limitations of each of the nine types; helping you to discover and empower your personality style and helping you become more effective in relationships. All of these have practical application in conflict management, development of interpersonal relationships and team building. The report gives you an informed opportunity for reflection.
A suggestion: Don't get hung up on the terminology and labels that are used to describe each type. Terms and labels can be quite emotive. I prefer to think of the nine types as simply numbered 1 to 9, that way they are emotionally neutral, no number is any better or worse than any other, just different.
The truth is that each of the nine types has fantastic qualities, core passions and fears which act as motivators, core virtues, typical vices and common pitfalls, which once known can be more successfully avoided or minimised. In terms of growth and transformation, for each type there are recommendations in terms of focus and strategy to enable you to tap into your most fantastic qualities and to co-operate with the other 'types'. Similarly, there are tips for how to overcome the less enabling aspects of your ego and how to deal with others' egos.
We are all unique and we do grow, adapt and change. The nine types are not about putting you in a box; quite the opposite. You, as a unique individual will be a combination of all the types of behaviour and personality style. You are likely to find two or three styles that make up your main (dominant) personality traits; equally there are likely to be three or four styles that are not very reflected in you, the others will have a more marginal effect. Part of the journey of growth that some of us decide to embark upon in order to become a more rounded and aware human being, is to evolve to take on the positive characteristics of more of the types.
In its most straightforward sense, the Pathfinder profiler indicates your preference for how you see and react to the world in terms of operating from the head, heart or gut, i.e. predominantly using detached rationality (head), instinctive empathy (heart) and emotional feelings, or instinctive 'gut' feel and intuition.
In reality, there are 18 fundamental styles of behaviour, each representing the expression of one of the nine types through either ego, or the 'higher self'. In this sense the ego, in the way I am using the term, does almost represent a 'lower self', a false, playing it safe persona, the mask that may have served to help us cope and grow as a child into a young adult. Other authors, coaches and psychologists may describe the ego differently or use the terms for a different purpose. You can chose to accept, embrace and absorb your ego into your whole self; or you can choose to thank it, let it go and tell it politely that it has served it's purpose; or you can tell it in no uncertain terms to begone! I'd go as far as to suggest that these may respectively represent a heart, head and gut response.
The Pathfinder Profiler report starts to describe the strengths of your type. These strengths are most likely to be fully expressed when you are in the most healthy and resourceful emotional 'state'. I consider this to be an aspect of your most authentic self, free of ego. The Pathfinder Profiler report also describes some 'things to watch out for' and what happens to your behaviour when you feel stressed - these are the more ego driven, less emotionally resourceful states.
Consider life's journey and your growth as:
- Increasing self-awareness, through increasing self-acceptance, through to increasing awareness and acceptance of others, finally to 'self-actualisation'.
- Dependence through Independence through to Inter-dependence.
To become fully self-aware, you will consciously and/or unconsciously understand, accept and align with your higher-self traits, your values, your internal moral code. To become fully self-actualised, you will add to this the management and enhancement of your emotional and spiritual state. You can read more deeply into the Enneagram to understand this more fully, or have some coaching/mentoring/training with Diane and I.
As relationship coaches, we have found the Enneagram to be immensely powerful in our own journeys, transforming an already high level of self-awareness to a whole new level. When two such complex things as human beings come together, the layers of complexity can seemingly multiply and can seem unfathomable and insurmountable. The Enneagram is the most powerful solution to this that I know.
The standard Pathfinder Profile gives you an amazingly accurate measure of your unique blend of the nine personality types. The report then gives you an explanation of your dominant personality type. in five main sections:
- Your Pathfinder Action Profile: this describes where the motivation for your actions comes from: your head, your heart or your gut. It indicates your approach to making decisions, the sort of facts you gather and the way you may react to a certain set of circumstances.
- Your Pathfinder Portrait: this indicates which of the nine types (Perfecter, Supporter, Driver, Dramatiser, Analyser, Connecter, Inspirer, Warrior, Mediator) best describes you. All of the attributes of the nine types are found in each person but for most people, one is more dominant and more characteristic of how you are likely to behave and of your unique personal style than the others. This section gives an overview your preferred type and a brief summary of its typical characteristics.
- You as a pathfinder on your personal journey: this section looks at your key strengths, traits to watch out for, how you may behave under stress and areas to explore and develop for your own personal growth.
- You as a pathfinder with others at work, home and in the community: this part of the report focuses on your key strengths when living and working with others, traits to watch out for, things that motivate you and it indicates areas to explore for your development as a team/community member.
- You as a pathfinder for others – as a parent, teacher, manager, leader, or contributor: this section provides insights into your strengths as a leader, aspects of your behaviour to watch out for and defines areas to look into for the further enhancements of your leadership skills, strengths and style.
We can augment the Pathfinder Profile for couples or teams to include explanations of the typical the interactions between different 'types', the strengths of pairings and the 'what to look out fors' (potential pitfalls). This is the logical next stage after increasing your own self-awareness and self-acceptance.
Or to more fully understand your Enneagram Type and Pathfinder Profile, take the report either as a stand alone process for £49.95, or with a coaching session and e-mail feedback from us for only £97.