Page 245 - Using the Enneagram System to Identify and Grow Your Leadership Strengths and Achieve Maximum Success

220 What Type of Leader Are You?

Before examining the Enneagram style dimensions of Make
Optimal Decisions, it is helpful to understand how the three Cen-
ters of Intelligence—the Head Center, the Heart Center, and the
Body (Gut) Center—relate to making wise decisions.
We all have Head, Heart, and Body Centers, and we can use our
centers in productive or unproductive ways. For example, the
Head Center’s productive use is for analysis, insight, and planning,
but its misuses can be overanalyzing, projection, and overplan-
ning. The Heart Center, which is supposed to be used for empa-
thy, authentic relating, and compassion, can be misused for
emotional manipulation, playing roles, and oversensitivity. The
Body (Gut) Center’s most productive uses are for taking effective
action, steadfastness, and gut knowing, but it can be misused by
taking excessive action, passivity, and reactivity.
Imagine having to decide whether to reduce your staff by 35
percent in anticipation of a possible decrease in customer demand.
To make a wise decision, the decision maker would do the fol-
lowing: (1) use the Head Center to analyze the relevant data, gain
insight into the trends, and prepare a tentative plan; (2) use the
Heart Center to consider the impact on both employees and cus-
tomers; and (3) use the Body (Gut) Center to answer these ques-
tions: Is a staff reduction the right thing to do? If yes, what would
be the best timetable for implementation? Can I stand behind this
decision 100 percent?
However, if a leader made this decision without using his or her
three centers productively, the decision would be flawed. The deci-
sion might (1) be based on the supposition that there is a need for
a reduction in staff rather than on facts (e.g., no rigorous trend
analysis was done); (2) be based on insufficient consideration of
its impact on people (e.g., there were no discussions with employ-
ees about possible transfers within the organization); or (3) suffer
from ineffective execution (e.g., there was no sense of the best
timetable for the staff reduction). To make wise decisions means
integrating the information you receive from the productive use of
all three Centers of Intelligence.