One of the many dimensions of the iEQ9 Enneagram assessment that I regularly use is the Centers of Expression. It can measure this at both the individual and team levels.
Centers of Expression is about how you predominantly show up and express yourself in the world.
The Thinking Center aka Head Center is being primarily connected to your thoughts and focused on processes, analysis, and objectivity.
The Feeling Center aka Heart Center is being primarily connected to your feelings and focused on emotions, relationships, people, and checking in with how you feel and how others feel.
The Action Center aka Gut Center is about being primarily connected to your gut and focused on taking action, moving quickly, tasks, results, and having the body doing something.
Ultimately, we need to balance all three centers to not only be a more effective leader, but a more effective person in all areas of life.
When the Action Center is overexpressed, individuals and/or teams may need to slow down! While they may be immediately responding to situations with quick action and task-oriented, they may be neglecting that a more emotional or rational response is needed.
I was working with an executive team of an entertainment company who had gotten accustomed to the fast-paced world of Hollywood. While it was good that the team felt like they could keep up with the fast demands of the industry, the leaders kept charging on “business as usual” after two key players resigned from their team after a big deal they’d been working on for months fell through.
Team morale was low, emotions were high, next steps weren’t really clear, and the team never stopped to address their feelings or process what really happened. As a result, tension built and nobody felt safe sharing their authentic thoughts and feelings. A lot of actions were taken, but not in an organized, systematic way, so a lot of the actions were not the most efficient.
When the Feeling Center is overexpressed, leaders and/or teams are emotionally expressive and connected to their feelings. While it’s great that they are receptive, compassionate, people-focused and sensitive to others and their environments, they may not realize when a gut-instinct or rational response is more appropriate.
When I was coaching the Learning and Development Team of a major financial company, times were stressful after many layouts due to the pandemic. Since the team had an overexpressed Feeling Center, they were able to confide, encourage, console and give each other emotional and moral support.
However, deadlines began to be pushed out due to procrastination or too much time spent on giving each other emotional support. Objectivity took a backseat as decisions were more emotion-based even if it didn’t make the most financial or timeline sense.
Lastly, when an individual or team has their Thinking Center overexpressed, they rely on logic and intellect to solve problems. They are focused on making sense of details objectively and analyzing the information. As a result, taking time to see the emotional impact of situations or having a sense of urgency to create concrete actions steps to move forward may be neglected.
I was working with a very talented and intelligent CEO of a tech company with an overexpressed Thinking Center who struggled to see the unintended negative impact his over reliance of his head center was causing his team.
While his gift for analysis, objectivity, and process thinking helped tremendously on the technical aspect of his role, it often left others on his team feeling disconnected from him and each other. Also, decisions usually took an extremely long time to be made, which caused delays in progress companywide.
In all three cases, once the leaders were made aware of which Centers of Expression they overused and which ones they underused, we created plans on how they could have a more balanced approach.
The entertainment industry Action Center team implemented questions in decision-making that involved emotional perspectives and slowing down to gather more data.
The high-feeling L&D Team at the financial company made more effort to improve in observation and reflection skills as well as approaching decisions with systemic analysis. They created a process that included an emotional, objective and action element with a deadline. They also included “gut checks” that consisted of quickly checking in with what their gut was saying without diving too deep into emotions.
Lastly, the tech CEO with the overexpressed Thinking Center started asking “How do you feel about this?” and worked on expressing and feeling feelings versus intellectualizing them. He asked for accountability from his team members that every meeting should end with a specific concrete action step that needs to be completed before the next meeting.
All three Centers of Expression are equally important and bring value to any situation. While situations will vary how much HEAD, HEART, or GUT is needed, effective leaders and teams make every effort to access all three centers.
Which Center of Expression is your highest?
Which one is your lowest?
What would it look like if you’re able to balance all three more effectively?
Leave a Reply