Leadership and the Enneagram Personality Model: A Multiple Rater, Multiple Outcome Perspective

Nario, Claudia Andrea (2024) Leadership and the Enneagram Personality Model: A Multiple Rater, Multiple Outcome Perspective. Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

The Enneagram is a personality model that describes nine personality types characterised by a distinct pattern of traits, values and motives (Sutton, 2007). Despite its growing level of adoption among practitioners in the fields of clinical, organisational and educational psychology, it is still not recognized by the scientific community (Hook et al., 2021). The purpose of this thesis is to examine the relationship between the Enneagram and Leadership, by exploring the associations between this personality model and three sets of leadership variables: leadership behaviours, perceived leadership outcomes, and leadership performance indicators. The nine Enneagram types were measured through nine subscales of a self-assessment questionnaire, the Halin-Prèmont Enneagram Inventory or HPEI (Delobbe, Halin and Prémont, 2012) answered online by a group of 133 senior leaders of a multinational business organisation. The leadership behaviours and perceived outcomes were measured using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Avolio and Bass, 1991), a 360-degree survey, answered by the leaders themselves, their superiors, peers and followers. More than 1,600 leadership ratings were collected online. Their performance indicators were obtained from company data. Preliminary analysis of the Enneagram questionnaire indicated that three of its nine subscales reached alpha reliability coefficients >.7, five were >.65, while one had an internal consistency of .55; suggesting that the HPEI needs further development as a measurement tool. The relationship between the Enneagram and the different leadership variables was examined through multiple regression analyses. Findings indicated that: (1) the overall relationship between the Enneagram personality model and Leadership was weak to insignificant; (2) the Enneagram's relationship with self-assessed leadership variables was, on average, statistically stronger than that with leadership measures obtained from other raters or provided by the company; (3) only a few of the numerous relationships examined between the Enneagram personality types (subscales) and the leadership variables were found to be significant, and most of these relationships were statistically weak; and (4) each of the nine Enneagram types (subscales) presented distinct patterns of relationships with some leadership variables vi rated by others or provided by the company, from the perspective of specific rater-groups. Although most of these relationships were weak, they were also mostly consistent with Enneagram theory. In summary, the low number and weakness of the associations found do not support the expected relationship between the Enneagram personality model and Leadership. On the other hand, the alignment of distinctive patterns of associations between each personality type and specific leadership variables did suggest some support for Enneagram theory. Despite its limitations, this study has been the first to examine the relationship between Enneagram and Leadership, providing a rich database on numerous leadership variables obtained from multiple sources. Additional research will be necessary to establish whether the relationships found here are replicated by future studies. These results have theoretical implications for research on the validity of the Enneagram in relation to workplace outcomes, and practical implications for professionals who are using or considering using the Enneagram in their organisational practice.