April 9, 2024
The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership Through the Lens of Your Enneagram Type
Understanding the interplay between your Enneagram type and The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership can be a game-changer in your journey towards becoming a more effective and conscious leader. Each Enneagram type tends to find certain commitments more challenging than others.
What is the Enneagram?
The Enneagram is a powerful and nuanced tool for self-awareness and transformation. It categorizes personalities into nine types, offering insights into our core motivations and fears. These in turn impact how we lead and collaborate.
Understanding your Enneagram type can help you navigate The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. This guide sheds light on the commitments that might be more challenging for each type and offers targeted resources for overcoming these hurdles. Focus on your type’s these commitments to support you in living and leading above the line.
Download a PDF version of this guide
Type 1 - The Reformer
The Type One is on a journey to move from judgment to acceptance. Commitments that may be particularly challenging include:
- Commitment 2: Be curious when you want to be right
- Commitment #2 Meditation - This meditation supports you in letting go of being right, and embracing the idea of curiosity.
- Read: What could possibly be better than being right?
- Commitment 3: Feel feelings (especially anger)
- Watch co-founder Diana Chapman model some ways of expressing anger
- Read: What Does it Look Like to Feel Emotions Consciously?
- Commitment 7: Appreciate the way things are now before reforming
- 4A Meditation: Acknowledge, Allow, Accept, and Appreciate - Our co-founder Jim Dethmer leads a meditation to help you come all the way to appreciating a difficult situation
- Turning Your Resentment Into Appreciation - Watch a real-life coaching session on shifting to appreciation
- Commitment 9: Rest and play more!
- Take our workaholism quiz to get honest with yourself
- Read: When F*cked is Funny: Humor as a Shift Move
Type 2 - The Giver
The Type Two is on a journey from pride (I don't have needs) to humility. Key commitments include:
- Commitment 1: Take only 100% responsibility
- Read: What's in Your Control? (And What Isn't)
- Read: Going Deeper with The 15 Commitments: Conscious Leaders Embrace Discomfort to learn more about where your tendencies to jump in and save might be coming from (and what to do instead)
- Commitment 4: Reveal your needs and wants
- Practice speaking unarguably (revealing physical sensations, emotions, or thoughts) to make this simpler and smoother
- Watch our co-founder Jim Dethmer offer a short coaching session on how to shift an issue by revealing.
- Commitment 11: Seek approval, control and security from the inside
- This Identify the Threat worksheet will help you see from where you are sourcing security, approval and control.
- Use this meditation to redirect where you source your sense of approval, control, and security from.
- Commitment 14: Creating a win-for-all means there must be a win-for-you
- Read: 5 Steps to Create Win-For-All Solutions (step one: be radically selfish!)
- Use The Art of Whole Body Visioning to get clear on what a win-for-you looks like (there’s a guided audio included also)
Type 3 - The Achiever
The Type Three is on a journey from vanity (image) to authenticity. Essential commitments involve:
- Commitment 3: Feel your feelings, especially your sadness
- Commitment 4: Reveal your authentic thoughts and feelings versus concealing them
- Get the basics, fast by watching: Candor: Are You Revealing or Concealing?
- Deepen with a short meditation about candor. “I commit to saying what is true for me.”
- Commitment 9: Value rest and play as you achieve
- Take our workaholism quiz to get honest with yourself
- Read: The Art of Stop: A Lesson in Conscious Leadership from one of San Francisco’s Finest
- Commitment 11: Seek approval, control and security from the inside
- This Identify the Threat worksheet will help you see from where you are sourcing security, approval and control.
- Use this meditation to redirect where you source your sense of approval, control, and security from.
Type 4 - The Individualist
The Type Four is on a journey from envy (longing for what's missing) to equanimity (knowing what is here is sufficient and being balanced with emotions). Commitments that may be particularly challenging include:
- Commitment 1: Take 100% responsibility for your circumstances without blaming yourself or others
- Watch: Are You Taking 100% Responsibility?
- Use this handout to learn how you are the creator of your experience (in a playful way).
- Commitment 8: Work in your Zone of Genius
- Read: Living in Your Genius: The First Question You Need to Ask
- Committing to your zone of genius is a courageous act. Watch this video to learn why, and what it takes to make the commitment.
- Commitment 9: Value not taking things too seriously
- Play a quick game about taking things seriously.
- Read: From a Distance, Nothing is Serious
- Commitment 11: Seek approval, control and security from the inside
- This Identify the Threat worksheet will help you see from where you are sourcing security, approval and control.
- Use this meditation to redirect where you source your sense of approval, control, and security from.
Type 5 - The Observer
The Type Five is moving from avarice (beliefs in scarcity) to non-attachment. Key commitments include:
- Commitment 3: Feel your feelings
- Listen to this guided meditation to be more aware of your feelings in the moment and feel them to completion.
- Read: The Cognitive Emotive Loop: What it is, Why it Keeps you Stuck, and How to Break Free
- Commitment 4: Reveal yourself and let others know what you think and feel personally
- Get the basics, fast by watching: Candor: Are You Revealing or Concealing?
- Practice speaking unarguably (revealing physical sensations, emotions, or thoughts) to make this simpler and smoother
- Commitment 11: Seek approval, control and security from the inside
- Watch this video to understand the concept, costs, and benefits.
- Use this meditation to redirect where you source your sense of approval, control, and security from.
- Commitment 12: Experience that you have enough of everything
- Take our Scarcity Inventory to explore the areas in your life where you believe you do not have enough.
- Listen to this meditation for a path to a direct experience that you have enough of everything.
Type 6 - The Loyal Skeptic
The Type Six is on a journey from anxiety to courage. Important commitments for them may be:
- Commitment 9: When things seem serious, find a way to play with it
- Play a quick game about taking things seriously.
- Read: From a Distance, Nothing is Serious
- Commitment 10: When skeptical, see how the opposite of your story is at least as true
- This meditation guides you through the work of Byron Katie and supports you in releasing your judgments as true.
- Follow these simple steps to investigate your beliefs and free your mind (Instructions for Doing "The Work" of Byron Katie).
- Commitment 11: Seek approval, control and security from the inside
- Watch this video to understand the concept, costs, and benefits.
- Use this meditation to redirect where you source your sense of approval, control, and security from.
- Commitment 13: Practice seeing everyone and everything as an ally
- In this meditation our co-founder Jim Dethmer guides you to see how all of life is an ally and for you.
- Watch an example of how to discover how something "negative" can be an ally.
Type 7 - The Enthusiast
The Type Seven is on a journey from seeking endless new experiences to finding fulfillment in the present moment. For Sevens, crucial commitments likely involve:
- Commitment 3: Feel your feelings, especially fear and other uncomfortable ones
- Listen to this guided meditation about feeling your fear
- Read a simple process of noticing and being with fear.
- Commitment 6: Only make agreements that you have a Whole Body Yes to
- Listen to this Whole Body Yes meditation and/or visualization
- Learn to make impeccable agreements.
- Commitment 8: Work in your Zone of Genius
- Read: Living in Your Genius: The First Question You Need to Ask
- Committing to your zone of genius is a courageous act. Watch this video to learn why, and what it takes to make the commitment.
- Commitment 12: Experience that you have enough of everything, now
- Take our Scarcity Inventory to explore the areas in your life where you believe you do not have enough.
- Listen to this meditation for a path to a direct experience that you have enough of everything.
Type 8 - The Challenger
The Type Eight is on a journey from a need for control and intensity to embracing vulnerability and gentleness. Important commitments for them may be:
- Commitment 3 Feel your feelings, especially the vulnerable ones like hurt and fear
- Listen to this guided meditation about feeling your fear
- Read: What Does it Look Like to Feel Emotions Consciously?
- Commitment 10: See how the opposite of your story is at least as true
- This meditation guides you through the work of Byron Katie and supports you in releasing your judgments as true.
- Follow these simple steps to investigate your beliefs and free your mind (Instructions for Doing "The Work" of Byron Katie).
- Commitment 11: Seek approval, control and security from the inside
- Watch this video to understand the concept, costs, and benefits.
- Use this meditation to redirect where you source your sense of approval, control, and security from.
- Commitment 13: See that all people and circumstance are your allies
- In this meditation our co-founder Jim Dethmer guides you to see how all of life is an ally and for you.
- Watch an example of how to discover how something "negative" can be an ally.
Type 9 - The Mediator
The Type Nine are on a journey from avoiding conflict to asserting their own voice. Key commitments for Nines include:
- Commitment 3: Commit to feeling your feelings, especially your anger.
- Watch co-founder Diana Chapman model some ways of expressing anger
- Read: What Does it Look Like to Feel Emotions Consciously?
- Commitment 4: Reveal your needs and wants, even if it might cause conflict
- Get the basics, fast by watching: Candor: Are You Revealing or Concealing?
- Watch our co-founder Jim Dethmer offer a short coaching session on how to shift an issue by revealing.
- Commitment 8: Express your full magnificence
- Read: Living in Your Genius: The First Question You Need to Ask
- Committing to your zone of genius is a courageous act. Watch this video to learn why, and what it takes to make the commitment.
- Commitment 9: Remember to play with what seems serious
- Play a quick game about taking things seriously.
- Read: From a Distance, Nothing is Serious
Download a PDF version of this guide
Ready to Grow?
In exploring these potential blind spots, remember to approach yourself with acceptance and curiosity. Start small, choose one commitment to focus on over the coming weeks, and use the linked resources to help you practice.
If you’re looking for more support, we’re here for you.
- If you’re just getting started with The 15 Commitments, join a Taste of Conscious Leadership (for organizational leaders) or Introduction to Conscious Leadership course.
- Don’t know your Enneagram type? We recommend professional typing with our sister organization, The Enneagram Group.
- Want more personalized support? Our 1:1 coaches are all trained to use the Enneagram interwoven with the 15 Commitments.
- We also offer Enneagram workshops for organizations.