Role Of Assessments In Leadership Maturation

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

By Lucille Greeff

Introduction

Given that the journey from conventional to post conventional maturity takes time and is complex as well as personal, approaches that provide opportunities for scalability and speed are valuable additions to any development process of this nature. The judicious use of assessments offer such an opportunity, especially if the framework that informs the assessment is able to hold the complexity and ambiguity of post conventional maturity levels.

The Enneagram is a sense making framework that fulfils this condition for holding complexity, however finding a valid and reliable way of working with the Enneagram though an assessment based approach is not easy. The Enneagram is steeped in the narrative tradition, but workshop or one-on-one based narrative approaches to finding your point of resonance simply do not provide practical scalability for organisations. There are also a number of Enneagram questionnaires available, yet with validities in the range of 0.6 being touted as sufficient, many of these assessments do more harm than good, putting people off the Enneagram as a result of mistyping.

The challenges related to finding valid and reliable assessment possibilities mostly relate to the Enneagram itself. As an archetypal model, the nine points of resonance of the Enneagram are constructed around different motivations and not at the level of observable behaviours. This is partly why the Enneagram translates so well in intercultural spaces, as a wide range of behaviours and traits may support the same motivational pattern at a given point on the Enneagram. However, measuring motivation is not an easy task. Most questionnaires measure behaviours as a proxy for motivation which is, quite simply put, invalid.

Keeping these challenges in mind, Dirk Cloete and I took on the challenge of developing a valid and reliable Enneagram questionnaire. This led us down the path of adaptable questionnaire technology and a variety of other tactics to ensure accurate results. This provides organisations with an opportunity for scale and speed on the journey towards maturity aided by an Enneagram-based assessment tool known as the Integrative Enneagram Questionnaire (IEQ).

The Context of Assessments

Making use of assessments to support leaders in their leadership development journey has become a fairly standard practice. Development-driven assessments vary in their use of different types or batteries of tests and simulation exercises as well as 360° feedback tools.

From personal experiences many leaders approach assessment opportunities with a combination of anxiety and ambivalence. Most of us don’t enjoy the idea of being assessed or "tested" which leads to the natural expression of anxiety. The ambivalence is often rooted in scepticism as a result of past experiences of the usefulness of such assessment exercises combined with assessment-fatigue.

Past experience of the usefulness of questionnaires for leadership development is normally tinged with a healthy dose of the "so what" effect. This is because most assessments are more interested in typology than development. Borrowing some terminology from the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), this line of reasoning holds that by knowing yourself as more introverted than extraverted or more sensing than intuiting, trait-based knowledge will magically lead to some insights and by implication development. However, beyond the baseline contribution to your development that this kind of self-knowledge may make, there are limits to the mileage you will get from this insight over time if you are on a journey towards maturity. And if you are as self-aware as most leaders, you probably know whether you are more introverted or extraverted already. Hence, "so what"!

Trompenaars & Woolliams (2002) also argue that the problem with many psychometric assessments lie in the fact that the traits or constructs they measure are linear constructions. This means that you are either introverted or extraverted and that you cannot possibly be both. At post conventional levels of maturity, the leader is able to confront dualities and paradoxes. The paradox of both being what we say we are at a trait level, e.g. introverted and what we say we are not, e.g. extraverted cannot be contained in assessments that are based on the linear assumptions exemplified by conventional expressions of thinking about concepts like maturity.

Many of the leaders I have worked with personally have also been quick to express exasperation at the thought of being assessed "yet again". With an inbox full of emails pertaining to the daily operational matters of business as well as surveys, requests for contributions and questionnaires from multiple departments, clients and interest groups another such request is often less than welcome. Given that the value of assessments have been tainted by the "so what" effect of past experiences and the time pressures most leaders experience today, this fatigue is completely understandable.

This means that you will need to contract properly with leaders regarding the completion of any questionnaire. To do so you will need to be able to convince them of the value to be gained from this test. Failling to do so may lead to leaders completing the questionnaire reluctantly or in some instances not at all.

In the case of the IEQ, the results of the test hold the following opportunities and benefits that contribute to the journey towards maturity:

The test enables you to fast track the exploration journey by providing an indicator of your point of resonance on the Enneagram in a time-effective, valid and reliable online test.

The IEQ is an adaptive questionnaire, making use of technology to deepen the questionnaire as well as improve reliabilities without asking too many questions. The questionnaire adapts itself to your responses, thereby eliminating questions that are not applicable while simultaneously zooming in on issues that are relevant to you at a given point in time.

The reports create meta-awareness at the level of motivation, which repositions your relationship with your behaviours, feelings and thoughts. The development of the position of being able to witness your intra-psychic processes and motivations is essential in the transition between conventional and post-conventional maturity levels. In the words of Rohr (1998) the Enneagram "advances spiritual discernment". It points out the pattern in which the ego resides, which then enables us to catch ourselves when we are confusing ego with essence.

The Enneagram is a complex framework based on fractal patterns that provide depth of insight over time. The IEQ reports enable multiple views of the fractal pattern as it pertains to you personally. This enables a growing and deepening of insight over time as the IEQ report becomes a companion on the journey.

The IEQ measures the interplay between who you are and the world you find yourself in. By bringing the contextual measurement of strain together with the Enneagram point of resonance, the development pattern through the lines of the Enneagram come alive. These lines offer key integration and maturation insights and action steps for the individual.

The IEQ provides a framework for evaluating the progression of maturity over time through the constructs associated with levels of integration, also known as the journey from fixation to freedom (Jaxon-Bear, 2012).

The Enneagram holds multiple points of view or points of resonance in a structured and archetypal manner, thereby providing some structure to the individualist expression of maturity.

Using Assessment Results Optimally

Once you have completed any assessment you need to make sense of it in some way that holds personal significance and meaning to you. This requires a process whereby you confront yourself in the mirror provided to you in the form of the assessments results, something Gurdjieff referred to as a "consciousness shock" (as quoted in Jaxon-Bear, 2012).

The Enneagram itself offers the potential for such a "consciousness shock". This is enhanced by being provided with a detailed and personalised report, an element that can go missing in gentler ways of exploring the Enneagram. This kind of shock enables the conscious mind to realise that there is more to life than meets the eye. This revelation deepens in personal significance as you are able to reflect and move deeper into the patterns of ego you are trapped in and the implications thereof for your life.

This means avoiding the traps of the defence mechanisms inherent to your Enneagram style. I’ve encountered many individuals who minimize their reports through explanation. This is mostly clearly expressed as "yes, but" behaviours. The "but" creates ego distance between the leader and the patterns impacting on the expression of maturity that want to emerge. As you work with your report, you need to reign in the desire to minimize or explain away important data as these rationalizations block insight. Easier said than done, which is where the assistance of a seasoned coach becomes useful when working through a report.

A coach’s role in the feedback process is also to hold and support the progression of internalization through the reflective cycle. The cycle of reflection first described by Borton (1970) through the root questions of "what", "so what" and "now what" are important route markers as you attempt to loosen the ego-knots that keeps you stuck in conventional levels of maturity. When working with the IEQ report and results, a series of questions enables you to reflect on the significance of the data provided by the report. These are set out in more detail in the practice section on page XX. Take time to work through the reflection cycle as these questions provide the doorway from data to knowledge to insight (and over time to wisdom).

The IEQ is therefore not an end unto itself. The point of doing an Enneagram test is not the result or the report, but rather what is enabled by these artefacts. This means that once you have a report, how you work with it is more important than the report itself. Great coaches know this and are able to assist you as you attempt to build a bridge between the report, your own motivations and the journey of growth and maturation over time.

The potential for working with an Enneagram report scales at multiple system levels:

My conversation with myself about who I am and why I do things

My conversation with myself about others

My conversation with myself about my world

My conversation with others about our relationship

Our conversation with each other about our team / family / group etc.

Our conversation with others about our team / family / group etc.

Our conversation about the organisation and/or society we live and work in

For the report to inform your conversation with yourself, others and the world there is no substitute for having conversations. Research into the power of visualisation holds that real and imagined conversations are both of value in this regard. From my experience those that work with their reports as "closely guarded secrets" seldom access the full potential of working with their Enneagram reports. The full potential of the report lies in sharing. Share the report with others, share insights, start conversations that challenge patterns that emerge as a result of working with your own Enneagram results and most importantly share the questions, uncertainties and paradoxes that emerge from the consciousness shock provided by the Enneagram.

There is however an important trap to avoid. The journey towards post-conventional levels of maturity is not through the pathway of being more of the Enneagram type you resonate with, but rather about losing the type’s hold on the expression of self by means of the ego. If you resonate with Enneagram 8, motivated by the need for control and the avoidance of vulnerability, the pathway towards maturity is not through more / more effective / subtler control. The pathway lies through the virtue of innocence or the transcendence of the need for control.

Working with a report over time enables you to process multiple challenges and to challenge yourself from multiple perspectives as your own insight and ability to question yourself grows. If you return to your report periodically as you feel challenged or blocked in relation to your growth, different questions will emerge to guide you. Block (2009) says that questions are fateful as they determine destinations and hold the power to transform. Approach each reading of your report with a clear question in mind. Challenge yourself to articulate questions that stir your emotions, as the questions worth asking are personal, anxiety-provoking and ambiguous.

Some Examples

Carla resonates with Enneagram 8. After reading her report, she emails it to her community inviting them to understand and "deal" with her more effectively. On deeper reflection she realizes that this externalization of responsibility does not serve her desire to grow and become more mature. She follows up with one-on-one conversations that all start with an apology. She opens up and shares what aspects of the report challenged her thinking about herself, her relationships and the challenges she is facing at present. Through this conversation she starts to articulate some new and tough questions relating to complex challenges that she did not have access to before having these conversations.

Peter resonates with Enneagram 2. He is under a lot of pressure due to a combination of personal challenges, academic challenges (he is completing his MBA) and work challenges. On first reading through his Enneagram report he unexpectedly bursts into tears. The intensity of his reaction surprises him. He spends some deep reflective time processing why this touched him so deeply. He starts examining the conditionality of his self-worth and his tendency to give in order to get. This enables him to not only re-examine his personal boundaries but also leads to a new research topic for his dissertation as he focuses on his own interests rather than the interests that serve others.

David resonates with Enneagram 3. While completing his questionnaire he reports not being honest about his answers. During the feedback session the coach asks him "what that was about". This starts a challenging conversation about honesty, adaptability and wearing masks that spirals into questions of identity. David finally reflects that he does not know who he is but that he knows who he is trying to be. In light of this he reflects on his coaching goals and his definition of maturity. He starts rebuilding his journey towards maturity from a position of ambiguity.

Rita resonates with Enneagram 9. After the death of her partner she experiences complex expression of grief. She vacillates between pretending that nothing in her life has changed, excessive drinking with friends and sleeping days away. She stumbles across an old Enneagram report, connecting to the relationship between Enneagram 9 and the points of stress and release at Enneagram 3 and 6. Her insights enable her to seek appropriate support and confront her feelings of loss in a different way.

Marie resonates with Enneagram 1. After working through her Enneagram report with her coach, she recognizes the link between her black-and-white view of the world and the conventional expressions of maturity she struggled to see in herself before now. She translates this insight into a journey that confronts her inner-critic with notions of ambiguity, complexity and multiple perspectives. This isn’t easy and she is often frustrated and tense about her inability to push through her own edges. She has a breakthrough during an improvisation session that enables her to "play" with this internal conversation in a new way, moving from "yes, but" to "yes, let’s".

Practices

Practice 1: Reflecting on your IEQ report:

This practice uses questions to guide a reflective journey. Reflection is the process of making sense of your experiences and attributing meaning to them. When processing your IEQ report, the Enneagram invites you to make sense of the pattern of your life. It can however also be applied to a specific challenge or incident.

The reflective journey mapped here is based on a series of questions. These can be asked by a coach or thinking partner. They can also be used to guide stream-of-consciousness writing, somatic expression exercises or other creative and expressive practices.

Practice 1a: Making sense of your pattern of ego-fixation over time

Consider your life as a whole in relation to your Enneagram report. Consider one question at a time. Allow the questions to "work" you. Notice your responses to these questions rather than judging yourself for your responses.

WHAT?:

Tell the story of your life from the perspective of the fixation of your Enneagram point of resonance.

or

Share some of the formative experiences that have shaped you to be the person you are today.

SO WHAT?

In light of the story / experiences you’ve reflected on thus far and the insights from your report, use the three questions from the list below that seem most meaningful at present to go deeper:

What’s emerging here for you?

What new connections are you making?

How does this challenge your interpretation of what it means to become a more mature leader?

What patterns are you seeing now that you haven’t been aware of before?

What has real meaning for you?

What surprises you?

What challenges you?

What’s missing from this picture so far? What is it you’re not seeing? What do you need more clarity about?

What’s been your major learning, insight, or discovery so far?

NOW WHAT?

In light of the patterns you are recognising now, use the three questions from the list below that seem most meaningful at present to go deeper:

What opportunities can you see to move forward on your maturity journey given the insights from your Enneagram report?

What do you resonate with and what would you like to explore and think about some more?

What are the dilemmas/opportunities that arise from this feedback that requires our attention?

What assumptions do we need to test or challenge here in thinking about your journey towards maturity?

What would someone who had a very different set of beliefs than you say about the way in which you are approaching the journey towards leadership maturity?

What actions or solutions do you want to challenge or re-examine in light of the discoveries about yourself you have made today?

What do you want to share with others based on your reflections today?

What feels less certain and more ambiguous now than it did before? How do you plan to hold these uncertainties and ambiguities constructively?

Practice 1b: Making sense of a specific challenge

Identify a specific experience or challenge that you would like to make sense of in a different way. Relate this experience or challenge to your Enneagram report. Consider one question at a time. Allow the questions to "work" you. Notice your responses to these questions rather than judging yourself for your responses.

WHAT:

What is the purpose of returning to this experience or challenge?

What happened / What is happening?

How did others react? / How are others reacting?

What was my reaction to it? / How have I reacted thus far?

SO WHAT:

In light of the challenge / experiences you’ve reflected on thus far and the insights from your report, use the three questions from the list below that seem most meaningful at present to go deeper:

What patterns from my Enneagram report help to explain the way in which I am framing and responding to this challenge?

What have I noticed about my actions / thoughts / feelings by taking a look at it through the lens of the Enneagram?

How were my actions / thoughts / feelings similar to those of other people? How were they different?

What anxieties arise from this challenge or experience? How were these anxieties expressed?

What positive aspects are emerging now that I have not been able to see before?

NOW WHAT:

In light of the patterns you are recognising now, use the three questions from the list below that seem most meaningful at present to go deeper:

What are the implications for me and others based on what I have described and analysed?

What difference does it make if I choose to do nothing about this challenge?

What is the main learning that I can take from this reflection to support me on my journey towards maturity?

What can I do (or not do) to translate my insights into this challenge or similar challenges in future?

How will I notice that I am not responding to my challenge from the point of fixation reflected in my Enneagram report?

Practice 2: Sharing insights and questions with others

After reading your own report, book time with significant others in your life to share insights and questions that have arisen for you as a result of your report. This is not about reading them your report, but rather about inviting them to be a part of your journey. It may be a good idea to send them a copy of your report before your meeting so they can read it. Frame the session as an opportunity for you to share and work with what this report has stirred for you. Try sitting knee-to-knee with others rather than approaching this from behind a desk.

Here are some questions that may guide your conversation:

What feedback about your behaviour would help you understand the way in which you show up in the world at a deeper level than you do at present?

What have you noticed about yourself as a result of working with this report?

What have you noticed about yourself in this relationship as a result of working with this report?

What questions would you like to explore with this person to make sense of your relationship?

What excites you about your insights?

What upsets you about your insights?

Practice 3: Start with an apology

Practice starting challenging conversations with an apology that references a meta-pattern highlighted by the Enneagram that has been expressed through your own actions, thoughts or feelings in relation to the topic in question. Start the sentence with:

"Given my tendency to XXX, I want to apologise for YYY".

See what happens when you start challenging conversations in this way.

The more you become able to reference the motivation and not the behaviour, the clearer you are standing in the position of witness to self.

Resources

For more about the Integrative Enneagram Questionnaire visit www.integrative.co.za. This includes the IEQ and other Enneagram resources

To deepen your exploration of your own motivations and ability to question yourself, play with the Liberating Structures on http://www.liberatingstructures.com. Wicked Questions, Ecocycles and 9 whys may be particularly useful from the list of processes.

For more on reflective practices: Bolton, G. (2010) Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development, Sage Publications

For more about powerful questions and transformation: Block, P. (2009) Community: The Structure of Belonging, Berrett-Koehler Publishers