Beyond Ambition

In his well-worn but not outdated book, Beyond Ambition: How Driven Managers Can Lead Better and Live Better, Robert Kaplan referred to expansive leaders as those who are vitally concerned with gaining mastery over their environment. These top leaders are highly motivated and usually ambitious, even driven, and many depend too much on success as a primary means of reinforcing their sense of self-worth.

His research at the Center for Creative Leadership showed that moderately expansive executives mobilize the organization to attain its objectives without weakening or destroying it in the process, but overly expansive executives focus too much on winning -- they're unnecessarily competitive, lacking in perspective, unrealistically ambitious for their organizations, often compulsive, controlling or even exploitative, too hungry for rewards, and resistant to criticism and change.

Managerial expertise and business knowledge matter, but the basic character of leaders powerfully affects the way they run an organization. Those who succeed are distinguished from those who derail not by absence of weakness, but by the ability to learn from their experience, including mistakes and failures.

When leaders seek a significant breakthrough in their effectiveness, there's much to be gained by looking beyond personality traits and behavior to the leader's character -- the set of deep-seated strategies used to enhance or protect one's sense of self-worth -- including basic driving forces. Such fundamental change, though difficult, is possible. Being coached to an inner character shift brings an attitude of relaxed concentration, where one is more highly effective, but at lower rpms.

Kaplan offered three prototypes, case studies that link to three Enneagram styles (he doesn't refer to the Enneagram in the book's text, but does include it in his list of references):

Striver-Builder (Chapter 2, "Bill Flechette"): No-nonsense attitude, gets things done, specializes in building organizations, plans for the future, drives toward implementation, strives for a world-class organization, competitive, drawn to be exceptional, interested in looking good (overly concerned about being the best/impressing higher-ups; subordinates sense their function is to meet Striver/Builder's objectives), articulate communicator (to the point of creating own reality), defensive, resists becoming aware of weaknesses/disputes feedback data (can't bear to admit feelings), self-deceptive, narcissistic.

Self-Vindicator Fix-It (Chapter 5, "Rich Bauer"): Authoritative and commanding, use of power stands out above all, physical presence radiates power, visceral need to rectify dysfunction, leads by attacking what's wrong, energizes "this isn't good enough" approach, specializes in turnarounds, gruff and direct, intimidating (with underlying warmth and good will), gets mad/gets over it quickly, doesn't support people enough, doesn't have soft touch, doesn't tutor/coach, judges people as either having it or not.

Perfectionist/Systematizer (Chapter 11, "Lee McKinney"): Devoted to principles, dedicated, hard-working, results-oriented, effective, loyal, adept at order/systems, durable under stress, over-manages, can't ever be pleased, difficulty discriminating between important/unimportant tasks, difficulty taking other points of view, needs to be right/beyond reproach, internalizes a host of shoulds, self-punishing and punishing of others.

The Sweet Spot

Dr. Bast underscores how the Enneagram is an especially helpful tool in teamwork, helping team members to non-defensively appreciate each others' differences and communicate more clearly. Enneagram Applications.

A common U.S. business leadership type, described by Robert Kaplan in Beyond Ambition as the "striver-builder," is personality style Three in the Enneagram. According to Kaplan, "This type specializes in building up organizations (to gain) high regard from the world. Their parents expected a great deal of them, and they internalized those high expectations." Their key motivation is to distinguish themselves, and leadership is an integral part of their drive toward success.

People with this leadership style want to look good. On the plus side, they have a supreme focus on results and excellence. But this same quality can generate competitiveness and a tendency to disregard others' input. Because they typically may not be introspective, it's an important aspect of coaching striver-builders to nourish their interior life so they see how ambition, image-consciousness, and self-promotion are driven by unconscious patterns.

When you coach high-achieving clients to do this inner work, they retain their gifts of confidence and energy while becoming more communal. Kaplan adds, "In the best cases, striver-builders also come to a personal acceptance of their limitations; they learn to get satisfaction out of committing themselves fully to something or someone outside of themselves."

The paragraphs above are from one of my articles in Enneagram Applications, the originals written almost 15 years ago. As I read them now, from the vantage point of 15 more years of coaching experience, I find that summary overly serious.

The "sweet spot" is a term commonly used in baseball but also holding a broader meaning as a metaphor. In a qigong class, we learned a rather difficult form where the knees are bent and the body is turned so that one knee rests behind the other. In the beginning it felt a bit like the game "Twister," but suddenly I was outside the physical effort, experiencing a sense of "rightness" and "fit." When I tried to describe it afterwards, my teacher said, as if this happens every day, "Oh yes, you found the sweet spot."

Instead of framing as "serious work" your clients' efforts to release their unconscious patterns, help them lessen their burden and seek their sweet spot.