Intelligent Leaders: Nine Personality Traits

Intelligent Leaders: Nine Personality Traits

John Mattone wrote an interesting book called Intelligent Leadership: What You Need to Know to Unlock Your Full Potential

John’s research is based on an enneagram that was developed back to 2500 BC in Babylon. This nine pointed diagram is centered on a circle that is divided into three groups. The leadership groups are heart leaders, head leaders and gut leaders. What makes this relevant is that we all make decisions based on those three groups in different quantities. Usually one group is dominant. It tends to be the elements of how we think, feel or behave in the workplace or in our personal life.

Each leadership group is then broken down into three additional groups:

Heart leaders are helpers, entertainers or artists

Head leaders are activists, disciples or thinkers.

Gut leaders are drivers, arbitrators or perfectionists.

One of the nine sub-groups is your dominant leadership with a foundation from the other eight. The nine traits can evolve over time as we become more knowledgeable, wiser and experienced in our everyday life.

Let’s take a look at what these nine traits look like:

1. Helpers understand people, are empathetic, positive, great listeners and enjoy close relationships. They can also be selfish and manipulative.
2. Entertainers are admired and respected if they deliver results and that is their primary focus. If you challenge their success they will become jealous and hostile.
3. Artists are the creative and innovative leaders. They are in touch with their personal feelings and help others do the same. These leaders can be so self-consumed that they lose touch with the needs of others and can be unreasonable in their demands.
4. Thinkers love to analyze the world around them and take those thoughts to action. These problem solvers can also lose touch with others while consumed within their own thoughts.
5. Disciples are the loyal, committed followers able to help others get things done but are dependent on authority as they cannot act on their own.
6. Activists are the sensation seekers that are very busy in their surroundings but these happy and cheerful leaders can hide a ton of pain inside themselves.
7. Drivers are the confidant leaders with a take charge and aggressive attitude that helps them accomplish their goals. They love attention but can be overly fixated to getting to the top by exploiting others.
8. Arbitrators are those that sympathize and empathize with others and bring people together while avoiding conflict. They can start to idealize their coworkers and become distant from reality.
9. Perfectionists are those leaders that really need everything to be perfect for themselves and others. They can be highly critical of themselves and others which can turn to anger and rage due to the amount of imperfections.

Do you recognize yourself in any of these traits?

Do you recognize any of your coworkers who are dominant in a certain trait?

Which areas can you improve upon that can make you a better leader? 

check out the wiki link for more interesting information

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enneagram_of_Personality