In Episode 9 of the Being Human is Good For Business Podcast we talk to Trilogy Effect partners Wendy Appel, Heather Marasse and Mary Beth Sawicki about New Year’s Resolutions for leadership development.
Initially, we set out to learn about 2021’s top priorities for leaders, but quickly shifted focus. Listen and learn how you can now finally stop striving to be your best self, and instead just relax into being the fabulous leader you already are.
A great place to begin is to discover your Enneagram type. It’s a framework that describes nine different, fundamental worldviews and their associated patterns of behavior.
“When a leader gets a little overwhelmed, they often tend to revert to old habits,” explains leadership development expert Heather Marasse. “The Enneagram provides you the means to see the patterning in your internal landscape and supports you in choosing different and more effective ways to respond and behave.”
Next, try completing the free Leadership Circle Profile online. This can set the stage for your year by identifying where you want to focus your development and growth efforts.
The Leadership Circle Profile is benchmarked against more than 10,000 global leader assessments to evaluate how you go about achieving results, bringing out the best in others and how much you act with integrity and courage. It will also reveal if you are overly cautious and where you may have self-limiting habits that impede your leadership effectiveness.
“Our clients find using the Leadership Circle Profile to be hugely enlightening and insightful,” says leadership coach Wendy Appel. “It allows them to see gaps and alignment between how they see themselves and how their teams actually experience working with them.”
Once you’ve taken the initial steps with the Leadership Circle Profile and Enneagram framework, you’ll have a solid foundation for your ongoing leadership development. Now you need to make a commitment to pursuing it.
“You don’t need a self-improvement plan or a fix-it plan,” says executive coach Mary Beth Sawicki. “Because you’re not broken. Taking on your development is a hero’s journey. It requires compassion for yourself and for the process.”
This journey will help you learn more about who you are, what you want, where you want to spend your time and energy, and what you want to focus your efforts on. In short, you’ll have more agency over your work and your life.
Learn more by listening to the show. Here are links to the some of the tools mentioned in the show and other resources to support you in your commitment to your ongoing development as a leader:
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MACHINE GENERATED TRANSCRIPT
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Being Human Is Good For Business Episode 9 Transcript
Heather Marasse: [00:00:00] You can have all the good intentions in the world for the place you want to create the world of work that you want people to show up in. But if you're not aware of the patterning that takes over, when things get stressful, you don't have hope.
Voice Over: [00:00:17] Welcome to the Being Human is Good for Business podcast.
In each episode, the leadership development experts at Trilogy Effect, explore how the process of self-discovery unleashes potential in us all. Now here's your host Sherrilynne Starkie.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:00:34] Hello. I'm your host Sherrilynne Starkie. Welcome to the Being Human is Good for Business podcast. Today I'm joined by the three founding partners of Trilogy Effect, the leadership development experts.
Hello ladies. Here we are. It's January. This is the typical time of year that people are making resolutions and they're trying to change their lives. I thought it'd be. cool to just take this opportunity to improve a lot more than my downward facing dog. Let's look at the Enneagram and what your type is.
And Heather, can you tell us a little bit about what exactly is Enneagram all about and how can discovering what your type is help you to become a better leader?
Heather Marasse: [00:01:18] Okay. Well, the Enneagram is a tool or a system really of self-discovery. And self-awareness, and it al is a way to start discovering and learning more about humankind.
Really. It's a system of nine personality archetypes. Said another way, nine different habitual, patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting that show up in humankind. When you start to learn about those nine archetypes, you will discover that all of them to some degree are resonant for you. it's a holistic system, we can resonate and appreciate each of the types. And there will be one where we get fixated, which we call it, it's called your dominant type. And what that means is when we're at our best, we're a human beings are dynamic and fluid, and we are going with the flow, adapting and adjusting and being appropriate to the situation in the moment.
Okay. However, life has a way of pressing on us, causing we have stresses and strains and losses and challenges. And to cope with that, we start becoming a little bit more patterned. We start getting a little reactive and trying to become more effective, but the irony is that often we're becoming less so. We're starting to run our patterns. We're starting to become habitual. And we're using our go-to strategy to try and get the needs met here. In fact, what's usually happening is we're getting a little overwhelmed. Our system's getting flooded and we're becoming less of ourselves and more of our patterns.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:03:15] how does one go about discovering their Enneagram type?
Heather Marasse: [00:03:20] There are a lot of different ways to do it. There are online diagnostics, basically questionnaires and surveys. We use a deck of cards which Wendy developed. Anything will work as a starting point. But the key to discovering your type is that there is no external system that we've found yet that can tell you what your type is.
It requires you to learn which ones are starting to make you more curious and do the internal reflection required to come up with. Huh? That's probably the one. When I think about the one that drives me when I take my hands off the wheel, that's probably the one that is dominant for me. And that's why we like Wendy's cards.
It's a manual card sort process. We have a bias towards that, although anything works. But the reason for our bias is because when people use an online survey tool, it gives you this false sense of certainty that this external system has told me what my type is. And it might stop us from looking further.
And what we like about the manual sort card sorting process is it requires some engagement with the material. It requires some questioning. It's not some external system saying, well, you're this type. It is much more a guidance system to help you discover for yourself. What's really going on inside of you.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:04:57] I spend some time going through the cards and I've decided that I think I know what my type is. How do I use this knowledge to be a better leader?
Heather Marasse: [00:05:08] Well, it's often said that discovering your dominant type is the booby prize. All right. Watch, what do I do with this? Which is really what you're asking.
This is when you start to really discover what the Enneagram has to offer, because once you see the patterning in your internal landscape, it al gives you the key to getting out of the box you're in. You start to see that I don't need to be defined by my habitual patterns. Which tends to be often when we're at our worst.
That's what our patterns really show up. And nobody wants to be defined by that. And when you start to understand what shaping those patterns, the fears, but the basic desires and the, and the fundamental gifts, that are truly behind all of that. You're starting to find your true North. You’re starting to find out that, for example, if I'm a Type 8, then my domineering bullying personality at times is hiding a big tender heart, a huge care for what's going on in the world and the people I love.
And instead of hiding behind my fears, I can start being more present to what's much truer about who I am and that's who I can bring to the situation instead of the domineering bully. Okay. You see how the patterning of the dominant Enneagram type al shows up, particularly in the what's called the below the line reactive. tendencies. And, the gifts that show up above the line when you're at your best.
Wendy Appel: [00:07:03] And Sherrilynne, and I wouldn't language it as a striving to be your best. I think there's a relaxing into it because you're not in the grip of your reactive patterns. It just there's like this inner freedom and spaciousness that you feel where you can just respond to the moment.
And it feels really good when we're in our reactive self. It generally doesn't feel good. The striving enables the reactive tendencies. It's the lack of striving that opens us up to our creative capacity.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:07:38] Ah, thou shalt not strive!
Heather Marasse: [00:07:41], what, if there was a New Year's Resolution that we could make for 2021, that would be it.
Yeah. There's no need. As matter of fact, that's what gets us into trouble. Right. It takes us away from being here now. And the truth of what's going on.
Wendy Appel: [00:08:00] Yeah, because, if you look at the nine types, you'd say for The Perfectionist striving to be perfect, and that sets up a whole chain reaction of behaviors or Type 3 striving to achieve constantly and hit goals.
And that, creates a whole set of patterns and reactive behaviors.
Heather Marasse: [00:08:18] Never enough. I'm never enough. I'm only as good as my last win. Right. Good enough.
Wendy Appel: [00:08:25] Exactly. A lot of these striving behaviors are completely being run by our beliefs about our self-worth and self-value.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:08:34] what I'm hearing here, ladies, and I can tell you, it's making me happy.
We don't need New Year's Resolutions, right? We resolve to not resolve. Yeah. I love that. Let's look at some practical tips that we can all take to be happier at work and to becoming better at leading our teams. What is the leadership circle profile and why should we get one in this year?
Wendy Appel: [00:09:00] it is the best leadership 360 that I've worked with.
And it's distinct from any that I've worked with. Traditionally, Heather, Mary Beth and I have done interviews for our 360, and we love getting that level of input and hearing directly from the evaluators, but this one gives us something distinct from that. And it really is a very holistic system.
We use the Enneagram extensively with our clients and the Enneagram is baked into this. They really, we dovetail well together. But it has a very positive slant to it. What it does is it focuses on what are called creative capacities.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:09:43] This is when you have a coaching client and you spend some time talking to their peers, their bosses, the people that report to them.
Is that correct?
Wendy Appel: [00:09:57] Yeah. You want to literally get a 360-degree view into. Someone into a leader because often leaders will relate differently to their peers than their boss, than the people that work for them than stakeholders. They can show up the same or they can show up differently. A 360 will give you that investigate how you relate to different people who have different roles in your organization or in your, in your world.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:10:31] Sounds a little scary.
Wendy Appel: [00:10:33] I think it can be. It can be very confronting. Absolutely. But without feedback, how do we know where to focus our efforts and how do we know how to, what strengths to, to amplify otherwise we're just living inside our own skin and, there's a great expression.
It takes at least two to no one. Right? So. Yeah, this is one way to, to do that in a really, constructive way.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:10:59] And how did you come across this tool, the Leadership Circle Profile?
Wendy Appel: [00:11:05], at least 10 years ago, a friend and colleague told me about it, and she said, Wendy you really should learn this.
That you really should get skilled and certified in The Leadership Circle because you love the Enneagram. You work with the Enneagram and the opportunity came for Mary Beth, Heather, and I to explore this in more depth and get certified in it.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:11:27] Hp\ow has it changed how you work with your clients?
Wendy Appel: [00:11:31] Well, we've largely stopped doing the interviewing for a 360 and added this. It is giving much depth and direction to the work that we do with clients in a coaching context. That as I said, paired with the Enneagram and you can see how one's Enneagram type shows up in their results.
And one of the things that it does, the person, the leader who takes this evaluation themselves. You can see the gap or alignment between how I see me, and how you see me and experience me and what my ripple effect is in, in a whole series of dimensions. S
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:12:21] this is an online tool. Is that what I'm understanding?
Wendy Appel: [00:12:24] Yeah. You take it online, you take it online and then we get reports and there's an interpretation manual that goes with it. It's really allowed us to see much more clearly where we can focus our efforts in a coaching context. And, and then this al ripples out there.
There's another tool inside of this called the Collective Leadership Assessment. You can really look at the leadership culture of an organization as well. that's a separate and very closely related tool.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:12:55] as a leader, what can I expect to learn by getting this online profile done?
Wendy Appel: [00:13:01] Well, you'll start to see a ripple effect and where you're putting your energy. And is it going more in a series of different kinds of reactive tendencies, or is it more focused on your creative capacities?
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:13:15] Can you explain those two terms, the creative competencies and the reactive tendencies?
Wendy Appel: [00:13:21] Yeah. The reactive tendencies are, if you think of it as where am I placing my time, attention and energy.
And you think of it as that playing, not to lose strategy. I'm playing it safe. I might go into, I might have a predisposition or a tendency to have go into high control. Be more autocratic or making decisions and behaving and playing, not to lose by having a high need to belong or to please other people or I'm holding back and withholding and distancing myself.
those would be some of the reactive tendencies and they have a direct relationship to the creative capacity. less of the reactive tendencies opens. The space for these creative capacities to be utilized and that that's the playing to win strategy where I'm going forward. I'm not acting out of fear.
It's the me versus the we.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:14:18] Can you give me a couple of examples of creative capacities?
Wendy Appel: [00:14:21] Absolutely courageous authenticity, getting results. Fostering team play.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:14:27] these are all things that, that we aspire to be very good at as leaders.
Wendy Appel: [00:14:32] Absolutely! Purposeful and visionary. This looks at, are we seen as using them or not using them to our full ability?
Heather Marasse: [00:14:42] I've been working with a guy. As coaching and with his leadership team now for a year. And I mentioned the leadership circle to him, and he went online, and he took it just himself, self-assessments. And in our last coaching call, we looked at his results. And then I explain what Wendy's talking about, which is when you look at your results below the line, these are reactive tendencies, which means you're gifted in these areas, but you're probably working harder than you need to.
And it's not necessarily putting your best foot forward? Yes. Whereas above the line. You have these kinds of creative competencies and when you're at your best, these really are you showing up powerfully and effectively. Right. And he looked at it and he said, what? This is freaking me right out.
And I said, Oh, no, I'm sorry. He said, no, no, in a good way, this is freaking me out because he already knew that he was a Type 2 on the Enneagram. He knew that in meetings and his boss is trying to have him show up more powerfully because he knows how, how good he is with staff and how effective he is at strategic thinking.
But when he's amongst different groups. He shuts down and his boss is looking for everything he must give, but he's getting reactive and not showing up. Right. This was freaking him out because he finally could see it in living color. How. By pulling and playing, as Wendy said, not to lose instead of just relaxing into I've got something to contribute here because I'm competent in this area and he was shutting himself down unnecessarily.
Wendy Appel: [00:16:28] Because when you take the free profile, obviously it's just you reporting on you. Yeah. It orients them to this and how they're currently seeing themselves, because it's always a point in time, but then to be able to see yourself and how others see you is powerful, but just seeing the model itself, you can start working with it.
And much research went into developing this model. It's rich.
Heather Marasse: [00:16:56] Not only are you getting a sense of feedback on your leadership, but you al get to see how you measure against a world database of leadership. You get to see how much of your potential is being used. Whether you're in balance between relationship and task. It's very well benchmarked.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:17:19] you use this tool at the beginning of your, your coaching engagements with your, with your clients. It's the basis for everything that's going forward. It sounds like a good place to start in January, right?
Wendy Appel: [00:17:33] Absolutely could set the stage for a year, year going forward and where you want to focus your efforts.
And really the beauty of this is it's like a spiderweb. And you pull on one strand and it, it makes all the other strands move. It's not like now I've got my self-improvement program. It's not that at all. It's like one strength that I want to amplify that will diminish some of my reactivity and in certain other areas.
And then it just seems to affect everything else.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:18:04] A lot of us start new initiatives in January. Let's say we work on getting our Leadership Circle Profile filled out and we work on figuring out what Enneagram type we are, and that sets the stage, but how do we keep it going? How do we make an ongoing commitment to our personal growth or professional growth as leaders?
Something that we can stick to and work on all year round.
Mary Beth Sawicki: [00:18:34] This is a great question. And, in this time of New Year's Resolutions, please don't relate to anything that we discussed far as a self-improvement plan or a fix it plan because you're not broken. And taking on your development is a hero's journey.
It is not for the faint of heart. It requires compassion for yourself and the process. Curiosity about what you'll learn about yourself along the way. And a heaping, helping of courage too really, why, would anyone embark on this journey? Why would anyone roll up their sleeves and delve into their own development?
Truly it will lead to some greater self-awareness. You'll learn more about your automatic wiring, your unconscious wiring, your blind spots, what triggers you, what reactivates you for me? I learned a lot about how I distract myself from what I'd like to avoid feeling or experiencing.
When I first started this development journey, a side benefit that I hadn't anticipated was gaining clarity about the people in my life. When some of the stuff dropped away, I could see the people that I was in life with and at work with more clearly for who they truly are.
It led to really improved relationships with people and more effective ways of relating to others. that was, there was an unexpected side bonus for me. Committing to your development will bring some improved clarity about your gifts too. What's important to you? Your beliefs? Your values, your purpose?
I'm reminded of a Mary Oliver quote. "Tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life". And I think that that is something that is up for people right now in this time of COVID. The floor has dropped out from underneath us and what's important.
This development journey can bring some real clarity to that too. Like who you are, what you want. What do you want to spend your time and energy and focus your efforts on? It's a hero's journey. It's not an easy path and it's worth it. This self-development journey can really increase one's resilience, because I don't know if anyone else is feeling depleted by 2020 and everything, but I am, and I am grateful for the muscles that I've developed around, navigating change and being with the unexpected and dealing with stress and strain and challenges.
This is something another side benefit of ongoing development is this increased resilience. Or at least ability to just be with what is versus wanting to be with what you wish it was.
Heather Marasse: [00:21:33] It's what the Buddhist always talk about.
The root of all suffering is resisting what is.
Sherrilynne Starkie: [00:21:42] Thanks to the Trilogy Effect partners Heather Marasse, Wendy Appel and Mary Beth Sawicki for joining me on today's show, I am going to get working. I know I've said this before, but I'm really going to get working on this stuff. And usually, I find you ladies just inspiring and I hope our listeners do too.
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