Out of the Box Coaching and
Breakthroughs with the Enneagram, Mary R. Bast, Ph.D. 
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved. Revised: July 17, 2010 

 Beyond Ambition
(from Robert Kaplan's book of the same name)

Kaplan refers 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 for obtaining and reinforcing their sense of self-worth. His research at the Center for Creative Leadership showed that moderately expansive executives manage to mobilize the organization to attain its objectives without weakening or destroying it in the process, but overly expansive executives can focus too much on winning -- they tend to be unnecessarily competitive, lacking in perspective, unrealistically ambitious for their organizations; often compulsive, controlling or even exploitive; 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. There's much to be gained -- if a significant breakthrough in effectiveness is sought -- 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 the basic driving forces. Such fundamental change, though difficult, is possible. Being coached to an inner character shift brings an attitude of "relaxed concentration" where leaders are even more highly effective, but at lower rpms.

Kaplan offers three prototypes (I've linked each to its Enneagram character):

Striver-Builder (Chapter 2, Bill Flechette) -- Resists becoming aware of weaknesses, drawn to be exceptional, no-nonsense, gets things done; specializes in building organizations, strategic planner, drives toward implementation, strives for world-class organization, overly concerned about being the best/impressing higher-ups, interested in looking good, subordinates sense that their function is to meet his objectives, articulate (almost creates own reality), defensive, disputes feedback data (cannot bear to admit feelings), competitive pattern of adaptation, self-deceptive narcissism.

Self-Vindicator Fix-It (Chapter 5, Rich Bauer) -- Specializes in turnarounds, visceral need to rectify dysfunction, energizes "this isn't good enough" approach, leads by attacking what's wrong, use of power stands out above all, physical presence radiates power, authoritative and commanding, can be gruff and direct, intimidating (not aware of power or impact on others), underlying warmth and good will (pussycat inside), 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) -- Dedicated, hard-working, results-oriented, effective, loyal, adept at order/systems, durable under stress, over-manages, others say you can't ever please him, hasn't discriminated enough between important/ unimportant tasks, has difficulty taking other points of view, devoted to principles, needs to be right/beyond reproach, internalizes a host of shoulds, self-punishing and punishing of others.

Recognize yourself in any of these?
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