In my early thirties when I was starting to get discouraged that I wasn’t getting the leadership positions I thought I should been getting by that age, I heard a line from my spiritual teacher that made my jaw drop with its simplicity. It was Russ Hudson at the Part II Enneagram workshop- he said, “the leader in the room is just the one who is most present”. I have loved that line, but in my forties, working for a smaller company where you can see leadership at work from closer up, I’ve realized that it’s that’s not exactly the same amount of work for each type- 8’s, 9’s, 7’s, 5’s, 3’s and 1’s tend to work their way up towards leadership positions easier because they don’t need to do as much inner work to be seen as successful. These types have built-in defense mechanisms to help them bat away the shadow with a dismissive attitude or cast it onto someone else in the room. When you accept the shadow of a situation, you not only have to be present to the shadow, but you also have to keep up with the egoic light, so some other types have to do double the amount of work to bring presence to a room. I’m looking at the type 4’s, who often carry the organziation’s shadow (mostly unconsciously, I’d say), and it can take longer to get to a place of presence to move the relationship forward, especially if they are carrying the projected shadow of the leaders.
Leadership (for Enneagram Type Fours)
