APPENDIX C
The Mattone Leadership Enneagram Index (MLEI)
The Mattone Leadership Enneagram Index (MLEI) is for indentifying predominant leadership styles as well as levels of executive maturity in the individuals you are coaching.
Instructions for Those Taking the MLEI
The MLEI will take 20 minutes to complete. Each statement in the MLEI corresponds to one of the Enneagram’s nine leadership personality types. Your task is to record your response (1, 2, 3, 4, or 5; see following scale) on the line following each statement.
1 = Strongly disagree with statement
2 = Agree with statement
3 = Partially agree/disagree with statement
4 = Agree with statement
5 = Strongly agree with statement
The Helper (Type Two)
1. I prefer working to help people on a one-to-one basis as opposed to a team basis.
2. I don’t like to admit it, but I get into other people’s business more than I should.
3. I think I am more people oriented than goal oriented.
4. A lot of thankless tasks seem to fall on my shoulders; I wish others would think of me for a change.
5. I am less disciplined; I know how to be spontaneous and improvise.
6. I am often not sure whether the respect people have for me is sincere or if they respect me just because I am nice to them.
7. I spend time with the interpersonal and emotional (as opposed to abstract and mental) aspects of the people and situations I encounter.
8. I am disappointed when I am not repaid for the good things I have done for others.
9. I often get attached to people.
10. I often feel victimized and used by others.
11. I often sense what’s going on inside others before they say it out loud.
12. I hate to admit it, but I have a tendency to want to make others feel guilty.
The Entertainer (Type Three)
1. I am described as diplomatic, charming, and ambitious.
2. I think I am more goal oriented than people oriented.
3. I am ambitious and push myself to realize my dreams.
4. It’s important to me to let others know how I feel, although I may express myself indirectly.
5. I know how to motivate people and awaken their enthusiasm.
6. I enjoy getting attention from others and being in the limelight.
7. I am very competitive.
8. When I get angry, I can get distant and icy.
9. It’s important to me to make favorable impressions.
10. I enjoy talking about myself and being the center of attention.
11. I am optimistic, enthusiastic, and authentic.
12. For the sake of my career, I am prepared to neglect my family and friends.
The Artist (Type Four)
1. One of my greatest assets that I bring to the workplace is the depth of my feelings.
2. It’s important to me to let others know how I feel, although I may express myself indirectly.
3. I don’t mind revealing my weaknesses to my team, my managers, and others; in fact, I often do.
4. I have the feeling that I will never be fulfilled.
5. I see my life at work as a drama; I am an actor and spectator at the same time.
6. I feel uneasy talking about myself and being the center of attention.
7. I am introspective; I have strong self-awareness.
8. I feel uncomfortable when people depend on me a lot.
9. I am tactful and respectful in my dealings with others.
10. I sometimes hold myself back too much and block doing good things for myself.
11. I have a desire to be an actor, poet, writer, or singer.
12. Down deep, I don’t feel at home anywhere.
The Thinker (Type Five)
1. One of my greatest assets is the sharpness of my mind.
2. I tend not to be motivated by what is “socially acceptable.”
3. People come to me because I have the knowledge that they need.
4. I need study time or at least my own corner to withdraw to when things get stressful.
5. It’s important for me to see things as objectively as possible.
6. I like to be alone.
7. I will hesitate to act until I have thought things through carefully.
8. I distrust authority and ignore rules quite often.
9. I prefer structured environments, but I am able to be innovative and unconventional.
10. People say I am argumentative—that I enjoy a good debate.
11. I am a strong systems thinker; I can connect the dots.
12. I often don’t put my good ideas on paper, and projects that I have in my head often stay in the planning stages.
The Disciple (Type Six)
1. I prefer working with others in a team effort.
2. I can be stubborn and defensive.
3. I am practical and down-to-earth.
4. I tend to procrastinate.
5. I am well disciplined, organized, and I follow through on details.
6. It makes me furious when others don’t follow policies and procedures, and they think they can get away with it.
7. For me, it’s important to be proactive about the future so that I’ll be better prepared to handle whatever comes my way.
8. It’s difficult for me to contain myself when others don’t do what they are supposed to do and they put me under pressure.
9. I know that the best results happen when I involve others; I value the input and opinions of others.
10. One of my biggest fears is being taken advantage of.
11. I see myself as a regular/traditional kind of leader.
12. I often have difficulty making decisions, and I find that pressure will often force me to make decisions.
The Activist (Type Seven)
1. I am a leader of change
2. People see me as fast paced, maybe too fast paced.
3. I am challenged by the new, unique, and different.
4. I can easily and quickly get frustrated with everything—myself, others, and events.
5. There is a little bit of a storyteller and entertainer in me.
6. I put down others who can’t keep up with me.
7. When my job gives me lemons, I make lemonade.
8. I can be impulsive, outspoken, and exhibit little self-control.
9. I am multitalented; I see myself as a renaissance person with an eye toward the future.
10. When relationships and projects get boring, I tend to abandon them.
11. It’s important to me that something is always “going on.”
12. I can get offensive toward others in order to get what I want.
The Driver (Type Eight)
1. I act quickly and decisively when things have gone awry.
2. One of my biggest fears is being dependent on someone else—anyone else.
3. I am like a rock, steady and sure.
4. Winning is critical to me in everything that I do.
5. I am able to influence others through my confidence and strength of my personality.
6. I like to call all the shots at work.
7. I have always been concerned about justice and what is right at work.
8. When I get angry, I tend to tell people off.
10. I don’t care if others like me as long as they respect me.
11. I am a resourceful self-starter who brings passion and energy.
12. I don’t ever reveal my weaknesses to others.
The Arbitrator (Type Nine)
1. People confide in me because I make them feel safe and appreciated.
2. It’s not always important to tell people how I feel.
3. I am an optimist.
4. I don’t always handle pressure well, and I work best at my own pace.
5. I value having a positive, productive work environment.
6. I realize I sometimes avoid thinking about my problems.
7. I am a good listener.
8. I don’t like to admit it, but I sometimes let little problems go until they become big problems.
9. I am good at bringing diverse people and groups together to work out issues and move forward.
10. I fear having conflicts with others.
11. I have a great sense of gratitude for what I have in my life.
12. I tend to think that if I let problems run their course, they will eventually evaporate.
The Perfectionist (Type One)
1. I am formal, direct, and mature.
2. I am often under time pressure.
3. I persuade others with my honesty and reasonableness of my arguments
4. In my thoughts I often criticize myself.
5. I am a teacher and coach.
6. I often feel physical tension—in my back, shoulders, etc.
7. I am disciplined, organized, and meticulous.
8. Others often feel criticized by me.
9. I am wise and discerning; I can evaluate options quickly and make accurate decisions.
10. I enjoy proving others wrong.
11. I am tolerant of my own and others’ shortcomings.
12. I can be ruthless and relentless in making sure I am correct.
Plotting Your MLEI Results
• For each type, total your scores for the 12 items. The maximum score you can achieve is 60.
• Transfer your total scores for each type to the MLEI Profile (Exhibit C.1), and plot your total scores for each type. You can now connect the dots to reveal your predominant type and distinct profile.
• For each type, there is a maturity and derailer score. You can determine your maturity score by summing your scores across all odd items (i.e., 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11) and your derailer score by summing all even items (i.e., 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12).
• For each type, transfer these results to MLEI Profile by plotting your maturity and derailer scores for each type. You can now connect the dots to reveal your distinct profile.
• Follow the instructions identified on the MLEI Profile to calculate your Maturity Ratio (MR) for each type.
• Your MR will range from +0.8 to −0.8. If your MR is:
Exhibit C.1: MLEI Profile
Calculating your maturity ratio (MR):
1. Total mature score 4 Total possible maturity score (30)
2. Total derailer score 4 Total possible derailer score (30)
3. MR = 1–2
Calculating your average maturity ratio (AMR):
1. Sum all nine MR scores 4 9 = AMR
Interpretation
+ .4 to + .8 = High executive maturity
+ .3 to + .39 = High average executive maturity
+ .2 to + .29 = Average executive maturity
+ .1 to + .19 = Low average executive maturity
0 to + .09 = Derailer traits are present
Less than 0 = Derailer traits are a concern
• An additional element to examine is to determine the number of types that have pluses (+). Having at least eight out of the nine types with a plus (+) would suggest that you are being consistent across the types. For example, an average MR of +0.20 and eight pluses would mean that you are consistently exhibiting average maturity across the nine types that define your leadership style. As another example, having an average MR of over +0.30 with fewer than eight pluses would suggest you are mature in some of the types and immature in others.
Interpretation of the MLEI (For You, the Coach)
Each of the MLEI types embodies a wide range of leader thought and belief patterns, values, attitudes, and behavioral tendencies. In combination, the nine types symbolize the universe of leadership potential that exists in any one individual. One reason we are all similar is that all nine types operate in each of us. One reason we are all different, however, is that their proportion and balance (i.e., degree of maturity or immaturity) are different and constantly shifting.
The nine types of the Enneagram reveal the full range of a person’s leadership assets and liabilities. The relative balance, however, of a leader’s type (as indicated by maturity ratios) produces their distinctive psychological fingerprint. While their predominant type (i.e., highest score combining both mature and derailer scores) is most revealing and should remain relatively constant, it is the degree of overall development of each of their other types (as well as the associated balance or maturity of all nine types), that changes and evolves.
Your role as a coach is to work with your coachees to (1) optimize the mature elements of their predominant type and (2) create paths for them to grow and mature in each of the other eight types that comprise their unique “fingerprint. This is the essence of strengthening a leader’s core.
Furthermore, equally important to discovering a leader’s most developed types (or highest scores) is to identify where they are least developed (lowest scores). The highest-scoring types represent areas of leadership potential that the person has already activated, whereas the lowest scoring types represent areas they need to develop in mature ways.
Heart Leaders: Maturity and Derailer Characteristics
• Type Two: The Helper: The functions of empathy and altruism and the potential for other-directedness, thoughtfulness for others, genuine self-sacrifice, generosity, and nurturance. Negatively, the potential for intrusiveness, possessiveness, manipulation, and self-deception.
• Type Three: The Entertainer: The functions of self-esteem and self-development and the potential for ambition, self-improvement, personal excellence, professional competence, self-assurance, and social self-distinction. Negatively, the potential for pragmatic calculation, arrogant narcissism, the exploitation of others, and hostility.
• Type Four: The Artist: The functions of self-awareness and artistic creativity and the potential for intuition, sensitivity, individualism, self-expression, and self-revelation. Negatively, the potential for self-absorption, self-consciousness, self-doubt, self-inhibition, and depression.
Head Leaders: Maturity and Derailer Characteristics
• Type Five: The Thinker: The functions of mental focus and expert knowledge and the potential for curiosity, perceptiveness, the acquisition of knowledge, inventive originality, and technical expertise. Negatively, the potential for speculative theorizing, emotional detachment, eccentricity, social isolation, and mental projections.
• Type Six: The Disciple: The functions of trust and perseverance and the potential for emotional bonding with others, group identification, sociability, industriousness, loyalty to others, and commitment to larger efforts. Negatively, the potential for dependency, ambivalence, rebelliousness, anxiety, and inferiority feelings.
• Type Seven: The Activist: The functions of spontaneity and diverse activity—The potential for enthusiasm, productivity, achievement, skill acquisition, and the desire for change and variety. Negatively, the potential for hyperactivity, superficiality, impulsiveness, excessiveness, and escapism.
Gut Leaders: Maturity and Derailer Characteristics
• Type Eight: The Driver: The functions of self-assertion and leadership and the potential for self-confidence, self-determination, self-reliance, magnanimity, and the ability to take personal initiative. Negatively, the potential for domination of others, crude insensitivity, combativeness, and ruthlessness.
• Type Nine: The Arbitrator: The functions of receptivity and interpersonal mediation and the potential for emotional stability, acceptance, unselfconsciousness, emotional and physical endurance, and creating harmony with others. Negatively, the potential for passivity, disengaged emotions and attention, neglectfulness, and mental dissociation.
• Type One: The Perfectionist: The functions of ethical standards and responsibility and the potential for moderation, conscience, maturity, self-discipline, and delayed gratification. Negatively, the potential for rigid self-control, impersonal perfectionism, judgmentalism, and self-righteousness.
Fluctuating Scores
If a leader takes the MLEI several times, their predominant type should remain the same, although you will probably find that the scores for their other types (as well as their balance for all nine types) will rise or fall depending on other influences going on at work. A leader having problems with a boss, for instance, is likely to register higher or lower scores in types associated with concerns about relationships, such as Two, Six, and Nine.
Likewise, someone who has been putting a lot of time and energy into work or is having career problems is likely to produce elevated scores in types Three, Eight, and One. After the troubled relationship or the career issues have been resolved (one way or another), the profile for that person may change yet again. The scores for the person’s basic personality type may also be affected, although the type itself will remain the same.