Page 140 - Using the Enneagram System to Identify and Grow Your Leadership Strengths and Achieve Maximum Success

Know the Business: Think and Act Strategically 115

demand, and are willing to reconsider goals if they do not seem to
be getting results. In addition, Threes’ facility with goal setting usu-
ally becomes more intricate as they gain leadership experience. It
is not unusual for a seasoned Three leader to develop a complex
and intertwined set of goals with an equally elaborate set of tactics
to support them.
One of Cathy’s direct reports describes her this way:

“Cathy seems to understand everything about the business,
but she’s also practical, and she gets results. She can read
trends and shift the way we operate in an incredibly short
period of time, and she is usually right. Cathy makes all this
look nearly effortless, although she works long hours.”

Although they learn fast, Threes also like to act fast. As a result,
taking the time to get to know the organization well can be par-
ticularly challenging for Three leaders. Three leaders also are eas-
ily frustrated, feeling thwarted when a product does not meet a
customer’s specifications, service is subpar and customers com-
plain, or the organization’s systems, structures, people, and finan-
cial constraints present obstacles to achieving their goals.
In addition, as a result of their goal orientation and emphasis
on concrete action, Threes may pay insufficient attention to devel-
oping a common vision and gaining agreements related to strat-
egy, even misconstruing goals or tactics for a vision or strategy.
In Cathy’s early years of management, an employee described
her this way:

“Cathy is extremely smart and sets very clear goals for
herself and the rest of us. The problem is that we have more
projects than we can handle, but no understanding of the
strategy behind any of them. Cathy thinks of herself as
strategic, but she thinks the work we do for our main
customer is our strategy. What happens to us if we lose this
customer?”