Contemplative Learning Solutions

The Ennea-Type Six School Leader: The Security-Seeker

“He is the best man who, when making his plans, fears and reflects on everything that can happen to him, but in the moment of action is bold.” 

This Herodotus quote somewhat describes the motivation of the next individual in our series of school leader Ennea-type profiles:  the Type Six school leader – the Security-Seeker; especially if we take poetic license and revise a section to read:  everything that can happen to him and those in his organization.... The Security-Seeker school leader is often maligned for what, on the surface, appears to be a persistently negative outlook.  However, to the Six, this seeming-negativity is actually troubleshooting for the good of the organization, her stakeholders, and herself.  She desires to anticipate difficulty and squelch it before it happens for her own safety and success, and especially for those in whom she has placed her precious trust and love. 

We once worked closely with a Type Six school leader who related the Six point of view this way after completing an initial Enneagram study with us: 

I gained such a reputation for negativity that people started nicknaming me ‘Don Downer.’  But simply being negative – a downer – wasn’t what prompted me to question plans and instructional initiatives.  In my mind, I was figuring out what could go wrong, and I was helping other people who hadn’t or who couldn’t do that.  I was contributing and protecting by being proactive.  But I don’t think others saw it that way.

The Type Six is regularly dubbed “The Loyalist” because of his unwavering dedication to organizations and to a few trusted and admired individuals.  But his loyalty is often overshadowed by persistent questions about, and objections to, even these trusted individuals’ new ideas.  Therefore, the Six is also called, and will even call himself, a “devil’s advocate.” 

Indeed, Sixes are the devil’s advocates of the Enneagram, but not intentionally to the consternation of her stakeholders as might be perceived.  The Security-Seeker’s head- or thinking-center anxiety stems from her need for affirmation of safety and, at unhealthier levels, from her aversion to change, which always implies risk and uncertainty.  If she is not aware of her tendency to do so, the Security-seeker can halt effective reform efforts, as well as decline opportunities for significant career-advancement simply to avoid the temporary discomfort of unfamiliarity.  It is then that the Six school leader’s motto becomes the familiar idiom “Better the devil you know than the one you do not.”

Backbones

Because of the Six’s desire for safety, security, and stability, he will often remain in organizations – include public school organizations – longer than anyone else.  Career or any other change incites fear of unknown variables; therefore, Sixes can become a necessary wealth of institutional knowledge and school systems’ backbones.  When superintendents or principals hire new leaders or teachers, the experienced Six can be the perfect mentor.  Routines, procedures, folklore, passwords, personality eccentricities … even door keys – the Six will remember, or remember where to locate, them all and will regale her newly-hired charge with the necessary information in great detail.

Similar to the metaphorical stiff backbone, though, the key to health is stretching and bending.  Unhealthier Six school leaders might subconsciously sabotage meaningful and effective change efforts by alienating stakeholders with persistent questions and uninformed doomsday scenarios, and by giving in to their unwarranted change-fear and refusing to budge from their current situations.

Indeed, while the Security-Seeker’s carefulness can foster effective instructional leadership by funneling time, resources, and energies into most effective initiatives and programs, it can also result in stagnation of school culture and student achievement due to mostly imagined future problems. 

Practices for wholeness:  stretching and bending the backbone

The Security-Seeker enjoys a familiar routine of activity (and non-activity).  Therefore, a stretch for this school leader might be to gradually embrace a healthy spontaneity when participating in extracurricular activities. 

In the school community, the Six might relinquish some safety-control by entrusting research of, and preliminary decision-making about, programs or initiatives requiring change to other administrative instructional leaders or teacher leaders. 

Finally, the Security-Seeker could consider mentoring new administrators to begin imparting some of her vast array of institutional knowledge.

Keeping motivation in check

Security-Seekers’ serious, long-term commitments to school organizations are admirable.  Sixes may rightfully pride themselves for their “stick-to-itiveness” in times of trial.  However, this commitment should not be solely motivated by a deep-seated desire for safety and change-abhorrence.  When the Six’s self-talk regularly includes a question of motivation (Why am I resisting?), and she can honestly respond and take appropriate action, then the Security-Seeker school leaders’ cautious, admirable discernment process can translate to meaningful school reform efforts. 

The challenge of improving teaching and learning implies change.  The Security-Seeker may shy away from this change because it is risky; however, she may also bravely approach this change because it is full of wonderful possibility. 

The healthy Six school leader faces her fears of the unknown and takes the brave leap of faith to move the school into successful new territory, and away from comfortable, but stagnant, traditions.

Look for additional profiles of other Enneagram Types as school leaders in coming weeks. For a complete list of Enneagram resources, check the Enneagram links on the left-hand side of this page, and visit our Services page to learn about the wide range of CLS workshops available for leadership and professional development.  For previous type profiles, click here and scroll to the bottom of the post.

The Ennea-Type Five School Leader: The Knowledge Seeker

In our ongoing series of Enneagram type profiles of school leaders, we last visited Type Four, a rarity among education administrators (and in the population generally).  Like the Four, Type Fives are a relative small group of people overall, and hard (but not impossible) to find among the ranks of school principals and administrative leaders.  Also like the Four, the Ennea-Type Five school leader relishes his or her uniqueness, particularly because the Five longs to be an expert, a fountain of knowledge and information about a specific topic.  We therefore call the Type Five the Knowledge Seeker, and at their healthy best, Type Fives can bring their inquisitiveness and keen observatory powers to bear in rich and productive ways within school settings.

Type Fives tend to be intensely intellectual and cerebral.  They are naturally compelled to learn and were often high-performing students themselves.  Type Fives tend to excel in math and sciences, but can be found in all fields of study.  What distinguishes the Type Five is not so much what she is interested in learning, but the enormous focus and absorption she experiences in her learning, almost as if she is compelled to become an expert on a particular topic.

Knowledge is Power (and, sometimes, Pitfall)

And indeed, like all Ennea-types, the Five is driven by a specific deep desire (and its corollary fear), in this case the hunger to intellectually master a field of knowledge so as to stave off his underlying fear of uncertainty and vulnerability.  Like other types in the “Thinking Center” of the Enneagram, the Type Five struggles with anxiety.  For the Five, knowledge really is power, and the Five will manage the uncertainty of the world by marshalling all his intellectual resources and all the information he can amass to protect himself and others.

Type Fives are drawn to leadership roles in part because they have specific knowledge that they believe can best be utilized in an administrative capacity.  This move toward leadership is actually a sign of health for a Five.  Average Fives tend to be highly introspective and in the face of stress will quickly withdraw from situations requiring social interactions.  They prefer the serene space of their minds.

But in healthier states, Fives move with their arrow of integration toward Type Eight, becoming more commanding, confident, and engaged.  In this space, the Type Five school leader can use her considerable analytic skills to process the vast amounts of information necessary for running schools and enhancing student achievement and can devise thoughtful, multi-layered, long -term visions for school improvement.   Few can compete with the Five’s capacity to understand complex problems and synthesize information, transforming it into a vivid picture of what a school (and the student learning within it) might become.

Healthy Five school leaders convey that vision to teachers, students, parents, and the community.  They organize the complex structures and processes of the school to maximize resources and get results.  They love knowledge for its own sake, and their passion for learning can be infectious to others.  They have tremendous powers of perception and observation, and at healthy levels can translate those observations into feedback and support that is encouraging, meaningful, and above all useful to teachers and staff members.

But the Type Five school leader faces enormous challenges in staying actively engaged in his leadership role.  The Five’s natural tendency, especially in times of uncertainty and stress, is to retreat from interactions with all but a few close, highly-trusted, confidants.   This leads to isolation, a lack of visibility within the school community, and great difficulty in communicating his ideas in ways that others can understand.

Fives have a sense of economy about their knowledge, in that they experience social interactions and the sharing of their expertise as a kind of cost, even a burden.  The Five tends to react by hoarding his ideas and information as a form of self protection.  This reinforces the Five’s sense of being disconnected from others, and his tendency to retreat ever further into the safe haven of his own mind.  The relentlessly social nature of the school leader’s role can become an overwhelming challenge to the Type Five.

Practices for Wholeness: Uniting Body and Mind

Perhaps more than any other type, Fives need to regularly reconnect with their bodies.   Physical exercise like yoga, martial arts, running, and other activities, when done with mindfulness, can be deeply healing for the Five and help her reconnect to herself as an embodied person. 

Type Five school leaders need to be particularly aware of the tendency of their type to withdrawal, and make an active effort to reach out and engage with others.  Building a strong leadership team, especially one that includes a handful of trusted advisors who understand the Five’s strengths and weaknesses and who the Five can turn to for advice and a measure of his or her communication effectiveness, is essential.

Above all, the Type Five school leader must guard against his tendency to over think problems and postpone action in favor of more analysis.  The stakes in most schools are too high to spend an excessive amount of time parsing out every aspect of a problem and its consequences.  The healthy Five school leader can lead schools and solve problems without getting overwhelmed by their complexities.  Then, the Knowledge-seeking Five can happily shine as an expert and intellectual who is nevertheless also engaged and highly effective.

Look for additional profiles of other Enneagram Types as school leaders in coming weeks. For a complete list of Enneagram resources, check the Enneagram links on the left-hand side of this page, and visit our Services page to learn about the wide range of CLS workshops available for leadership and professional development.  For previous type profiles, click here and scroll to the bottom of the post.

Join us for TeachMeet KY this Friday, Oct 5: Learn more about the Enneagram

The third annual TeachMeet KY will be held this Friday, October 5, at Gary Randsdell Hall on WKU's main campus.  Tom and Gary will be presenting on the Enneagram personality typing system and its applications for classroom practice and teacher and school leader professional development.

TeachMeets are fairly informal gatherings of educators who come to share ideas about best practices, especially in how to use technology to enhance and engage student learning.  According to the TeachMeet KY Wikispaces site, TeachMeets are "unconferences:"

Unconference means we don’t charge anything to attend and sessions are decided upon by participants. Typically TeachMeets are fast paced (20 min sessions), tech sharing, friend making, and never boring gatherings of people sharing web 2.0 tools for education.

TeachMeets originated in the United Kingdom.  Watch this video to learn more about how they work:

 

To learn more, view a tentative schedule of presentations, and to sign up for this year's TeachMeet, click here.  Hope to see some of you this Friday!