Page 108 - Using the Enneagram System to Identify and Grow Your Leadership Strengths and Achieve Maximum Success

Strive for Self-Mastery 85

CHART 3.6 (Continued) Fives: Levels of Self-Mastery

Descriptions
Low self-mastery The Fearful Strategist
Core fear: Being helpless, incapable, depleted, and
overtaken.
At the lowest level of self-mastery, Fives become frightened,
withdrawn, and isolated. Hostile and haunted, they come to
believe that others are planning to do them harm; as a
consequence, they will plot and scheme to harm others as a
way of circumventing what they imagine will be done to
them. Secretive and implosive, they remove themselves from
interaction with others and have extremely limited access to
their own feelings. Their minds become so overactive that
their mental processes seem out of control, even to them.
Example: Emily, an attorney, felt extremely threatened when
the firm hired Scott, an outgoing lawyer with a long client list,
to work in her department. Within three months, he had
established more positive relationships with other lawyers in
the firm than Emily had established in three years. Concerned
that Scott appeared to be a superstar, Emily did everything she
could to undermine him. For example, she refused to work
with him on cases or allow him to use the department’s
paralegal staff, and she made derogatory comments about him
to clients and to anyone in the firm who would listen to her.

Development Stretches for Fives

ALLOW YOURSELF TO NEED OTHERS Each week, think of one thing
that you can’t provide completely for yourself and that you there-
fore need from others. Then think of someone who might be able
to provide this for you, and ask that person if he or she will do so.
What matters most is not whether the person says yes, but that you
identify a need and then ask for it to be met.

CONNECT WITH AND EXPRESS YOUR FEELINGS For two or three
days, every hour on the hour, ask yourself this question: What am
I feeling right now? Don’t settle for a one-word answer. Then ask
this: And what else am I feeling? After three days, continue asking
yourself both questions, but do so at those times when you are
aware that you are becoming extremely analytical. These moments
of extreme analysis may be covering over your feelings.