Enneagram & Stewardship: Types 2-3-4

This episode begins a 3-part series on the Enneagram, a popular personality profile tool. The Enneagram identifies nine different personality types in three groupings and we’ll tackle one grouping each episode.

What’s different about the Enneagram from most other personality tests is that it acknowledges that within each personality type, there are healthy and unhealthy traits. People of any personality type are on a spectrum from unhealthy to healthy, and the explanations identify ways to move more toward the healthy end of the spectrum for each type.

We’ll look at what these personality types tend to mean for stewardship, and how to move toward healthier stewardship within each personality type.

This week’s grouping is characterized by responses to shame and focuses on the heart. We all have a certain amount of shame and we respond to it in different ways; but for people in this grouping, the response to shame is a driver in their lives. We’ll look at the three “shame-driven” personality types:

• The Helper (type 2), who deals with shame through external relationships;
• The Achiever (type 3), who deals with shame by masking it with success;
• The Individualist (type 4), who deals with shame by insisting on uniqueness.

Podcast host James Lenhoff helps us understand this triad of Enneagram types, emphasizing the stewardship implications and showing us what it looks like to move toward health for each type.

For more information on the Enneagram, see enneagraminstitute.com.