Enneagram Type Three - The Achiever

Area of Avoidance: Feelings of failure and resultant self-recrimination.

Core Positive Attribute: Delivery

Often Attracted to…

• Winning, achieving and success.

• Material representations of success.

• Clearly defined goals.

• Credibility, recognition and reward.

• Getting tasks done efficiently.

• Purposeful relationships.

• Being ‘master of their own ship’.

• Fast pace.

Often Avoids…

• Failing to achieve defined goals.

• Feeling worthless and without value.

• Losing credibility.

• Being second best.

• Over-emotionality.

• Anyone or anything that becomes an obstacle to achieving goals.

• Inactivity or slowness of pace.

• Lack of direct ownership of their own goals.

High Integration – characteristic behaviours

• Able to work in a team and enable others to be successful.

• Reality and authenticity are far more important than the superficial and inauthentic ‘image’ of success.

• Able to slow down and allow oneself to experience emotions.

• Able to display genuine empathy and compassion for others.

• Investing in real relationships is at least as important as completing tasks and achieving goals.

• Can be great mentors and role models for others.

Low Integration – characteristic behaviours

• The ‘image’ of success is more important that the reality.

• Doing whatever it takes to appear successful.

• Addicted to receiving acknowledgement and recognition for success.

• Tempted to be deceitful and inauthentic in order to maintain the image of success.

• Suppressing own emotions in order not to be distracted from the task at hand.

• Tasks and the achieving of goals are more important than relationships.

• Can be manipulative and inauthentic in relationships in order to obtain what is required to achieve a goal.

• Difficulty working in a team context where there are shared objectives. Prefers working to achieve own objectives independently.

Typical development needs

• Learning that authenticity is more important than creating a false image.

• Learning to break the addiction to external recognition in order to get a feeling of self-worth.

• Learning to slow down and build authentic relationships.

• Learning to access own emotions and recognise emotions in others.

By Colin Adam