Resolving Conflict for Your Enneagram Type
Conflict happens.
It’s a natural part of human interaction. Conflict can help clear the air, create new options, and let other voices be heard.
Or it can cause misunderstanding, frustration, and simmering, long-term resentment.
Conflict has pros and cons, and modern leaders must know how and when to manage and resolve conflict effectively and efficiently.
So, how can leaders guide their teams to navigate conflict in healthy, constructive ways instead of spending valuable time solving disagreements?
First, let’s understand conflict.
Conflict arises because of disagreement. Conflicts might be about a procedure, a course of action, an opinion, a timeframe, a client interaction, etc. Disputes between co-workers will happen in all organizations, even ones that function well together.
Conflict tends to have a negative connotation. But it isn’t conflict itself that’s the issue. The problem with conflict is how we handle it. We can handle it with anger and negativity, or we can handle it with calm and a sense of optimism.
Inside the work environment, conflict can be the opportunity to get creative, learn to work together more collaboratively, and create a safe environment to voice one’s opinions, questions, or objections.
When conflict is handled with understanding and empathy, it can:
help move projects along faster,
dissolve tensions,
create clarity,
empower employees to engage before an issue arises,
facilitate better communication, and
give everyone more ownership and responsibility.
On the other hand, when conflict is not addressed or addressed poorly, it can become time-consuming, halt work progress, increase tension and confusion, stop the flow of communication, and drop productivity.
Minor arguments can devolve into employees harboring negative feelings, being unable to work together and affecting everyone in the workplace. In the extreme, it could cause employees to quit, leaving the organization with the cost of hiring and training, and the potential for future issues if the original conflicts are not resolved.
Managing and addressing conflict must be a core competency of today’s leaders. It will save you time, energy, and money and model successful conflict management for your employees and colleagues.
Working with different people who have distinct views, opinions, personalities, and skills can be difficult. The soft skills of navigating personalities are critical in our modern work environments but are only sometimes taught or modeled to leaders.
So, how do talented leaders manage conflict?
Imagine if you could understand what creates conflict and mitigate it early.
Picture your workplace where conflicts are handled with skill, valued as helpful, and you feel adept at managing it.
Sounds great, right? But leaving all the onus on you as the leader to manage every conflict is asking a lot when you have a million other decisions, interactions, discussions, and tasks to handle.
Wouldn’t it be even better if your employees knew what caused them conflict and how they would like to resolve it, enabling them to handle conflict constructively and independently without taking your time, energy, and attention?
The Key to Managing Conflict
Knowing and applying the Enneagram in your workplace is one of the best tools for understanding, managing, and resolving conflict for leaders and employees.
The Enneagram is a personality typing system specifically designed to help us understand how we see the world and what motivates us.
Each of us falls into one of the nine Enneagram types. Knowing your Enneagram type helps you understand the motivations behind your actions, reactions, thoughts, feelings, patterns, and habits.
Your Enneagram type can illuminate:
your strengths, challenges, & motivations,
how you communicate,
how you make decisions,
how you relate to others,
and what causes conflict for you and others, including ways each of you prefers to resolve it, and more.
When we know and understand our Enneagram type, we know and understand ourselves exponentially better. We become more self-aware, more proactive in our personal growth, and able to make meaningful decisions and changes that transform our lives.
And the more we know and understand ourselves, the better equipped we are to acknowledge what causes us conflict and how to resolve it best.
Our Enneagram-based coaching provides the unique opportunity to learn your type and how it affects all aspects of your life, including what causes conflict for you and others.
Why knowing your Enneagram type matters:
We all see the world differently. We are all motivated to seek or avoid different things in our lives, and these motivations, over time, create our personalities. Our motivations and personalities are the basis of our Enneagram type. And what causes us conflict and how we resolve it is directly impacted by our type.
For example, let’s take the Type Six. The Type Six person is thoughtful, analytical, and an excellent problem-solver. They are skilled at being prepared if something happens, calm in a crisis, and are natural troubleshooters.
Sixes seek certainty and trust in people and situations. They want to trust the people around them, including co-workers and leaders, to be honest, reliable, and committed. They avoid the worst-case scenario from occurring, so they focus on what could go wrong to create certainty and be prepared if things fall apart.
Knowing this about a Six, what might cause conflict for them?
When a Six experiences a lack of trust, genuineness, or commitment, they feel frustrated, afraid, or worried that they can’t trust your words or actions. These worries create conflict between the certainty and trust-seeking Six and the person they perceive as disingenuous or has broken their trust.
Sixes respond to conflict with emotions first. As part of the Reactive group in the Enneagram, they express their feelings about the conflict before addressing the issue. Having their feelings heard and validated helps create trust between the Six and the other person.
Sixes then start an intense analysis of the person or situation and can be highly defensive (especially if others question their trust or commitment.)
When becoming self-aware of conflict, Sixes can:
recognize patterns that are creating friction and conflict,
validate their emotions on their own and take a few deep breaths before engaging with the other person,
observe their emotional reactions with objectivity and start to find alternate perspectives,
release their need for total trust and certainty,
be more flexible with others, and
proactively express their need for honest communication, reliable actions, and a commitment to the project, team, or task.
On the other hand, the causes, reactions, and resolutions of conflict in a Type Nine are very different.
Type Nines are easygoing and affable, good listeners, able to see and understand many viewpoints, and are good facilitators and mediators.
Nines seek harmony and peace in the people and situations around them. They focus on bringing people together, ensuring all voices are heard, and listening with empathy. Nines avoid disharmony, conflict, and aggression from the people around them, including co-workers and leaders, and want others to be flexible, easygoing, and predictable to create an environment of harmony and peace.
Knowing this about Nines, what could cause conflict for them?
When a Nine experiences rudeness or hostility in others, feels a disruption of harmony or peace, is confronted, or feels unsupported, they feel frustrated and angry (even though they might not realize it’s anger they are feeling.) This anger creates conflict between the harmony-seeking Nine and the person they perceive disrupts it.
Nines respond to conflict with positive reframing or avoiding it. As part of the Positive Outlook group in the Enneagram, they don’t want to create more conflict, disharmony, or ill will with others, so they avoid or remove themselves from conflict. This avoidance can lead to simmering resentments, internal conflict, passive-aggressive actions by the Nine, and unresolved issues.
When becoming self-aware about conflict, Nines can:
recognize patterns that are creating friction and conflict,
share their side of the story, including their opinions, needs, and wants,
stay present even when the conflict feels tough,
take a few deep breaths and feel your body as strong and powerful,
affirm their feelings of anger or frustration, and
tap into their skill of seeing many viewpoints to explore alternate perspectives.
Conflict resolution skills that work for one type don’t always for another.
Where Sixes need to go with the flow, Nines need to speak up and state their opinions.
Nines might need more support when engaged in conflict because they worry about creating the disharmony they are avoiding.
Sixes might need more time to express their feelings to feel heard, build trust with you, and then open up about their conflict.
Where Nines need to practice staying engaged in conflict, Sixes need to remove themselves and get calm before working on a resolution.
Remember, each Enneagram type seeks something that makes them feel their best. For Sixes, it’s certainty and trust. For Nines, it’s peace and harmony. How they react when those elements are missing or broken creates conflicts.
With self-awareness and personal growth, every type can manage themselves better before, during, and after conflicts.
When leaders and colleagues know and understand their Enneagram types, they know how to support each other in conflicts.
You and your employees don’t need to be experts in the Enneagram. But working with a certified Enneagram teacher and coach can be the solution you’ve been looking for.
The Easy Button for Conflict Resolution
If there were an easy button, we’d all be pushing it, right? There isn’t, but there is a way to make resolving conflict easier, faster, more productive, and less time-consuming.
When leaders and employees are self-aware and understand themselves and each other better, they bring their best selves to work. They know what pushes their buttons, how to handle it, and how to take responsibility for their actions.
Most conflict resolution platforms focus on one method or system to manage conflict. But taking a one-size-fits-all approach to conflict resolution doesn’t work for everyone. And expecting leaders to be conflict resolution masters is not always practical, efficient, or effective.
Our Enneagram-based coaching takes the burden from leaders. It empowers employees to know and understand their conflict, handle it productively, and realize that it can be a source of clarity, understanding, and stronger relationships.
Through individual coaching, we help employees and leaders know their Enneagram type and what it means for them. We dig into the patterns that emerge in conflict and help individuals understand how to notice and mitigate it proactively, work through it constructively, and understand what creates conflict for others.
It may not be as simple as an easy button, but it can be more simple than you think.
We give individuals the knowledge and the tools to create self-awareness of what initiates conflict for them and the steps to handle it.
We teach them what sparks conflict in their colleagues so they can be more aware, understanding, and collaborative.
We help everyone recognize that some Enneagram types handle conflict with emotions, others handle conflict with logic, and some avoid or reframe it. And each of those requires different approaches and solutions.
When leaders and teammates know and understand what creates conflict for them, how they handle it, and what they need to resolve it, they can:
be proactive in stopping conflict before it starts,
take ownership of their actions,
approach another with an understanding of what they need, and
take on the responsibility of resolving conflict instead of passing it on to you as the leader.
Time to take action
When you are ready to create a workplace where conflict creates understanding and empathy, moves projects along faster, dissolves tensions, empowers proactive engagement and communication between employees, and hands responsibility and ownership to those experiencing conflict, we are ready to coach you and your team.
We custom tailor our Conflict and Communication Workshop for your team, working with each member individually and as a group. We also offer ongoing coaching packages and team facilitation. Book a free consultation to learn more about our coaching offers.
