How to become an Enneagram Coach

Out of all the personality systems I’ve learned over the years, the Enneagram is the one I love most. As an MCC coach, a trainer, a business owner and a mother, it’s one of the most important tools I use.

If you want to change lives, it gives you a structured, usable way to understand why we do what we do, and a map for personal and spiritual growth.

It doesn’t put you in a box

You may feel resistant to a system that labels and defines you. I was. When I first came across the Enneagram I was thoroughly sceptical, having studied so many personality methods that I was simply done with all of it.

Then I looked deeper, and the depth and accuracy of it shocked me. It became a “how did I ever coach clients without this?” part of my toolbox.

The Enneagram doesn’t put you in a box. It shows you the box you are already in, and gives you a map to be free.

Every wave in the ocean is unique. That’s true. And we are each a unique, individual expression of the ocean of life. It’s also true that you can study the patterns of the waves and see them clearly.

Carl Jung made the word archetypes popular for the patterns of personality and character that arise from the collective unconscious. When we study the Enneagram, we are studying those archetypal patterns. Being one of the waves doesn’t make you less of an individual.

But there’s one insight you have to hold onto, or the whole thing falls apart in your hands.

Everybody helps. The question is why

When I’m teaching, I ask the room to raise a hand if they enjoy helping people. Every hand goes up.

Now, Type 2 is often called the Helper or the Giver. That’s a behaviour. So everyone in the room starts thinking, maybe I’m a 2.

They’re not. Or at least, helping tells you nothing about it. All nine types help. Each one for a completely different hidden reason.

That table is the entire method in miniature. The Enneagram is not built on behaviour. It’s built on the reasons behind behaviour, and that is exactly what makes it useful when you’re coaching.

• When you know the reason for a behaviour, you can transform the behaviour.
• When you know the reason, you can motivate and inspire.
• When you don’t know the reason, you’re blind to the cause. Unconscious, and trapped by the personality.

The grain of sand

The way we teach it at InnerLifeSkills, the types form around hidden factors we’re born with. We call them the grains of sand in the Personality Pearl, and we label them Red, Green and Blue.

An oyster coats an irritant, a grain of sand, in layer after layer of mother of pearl until you have something beautiful. In the same way, the grain of sand in a personality is the reason the personality formed the way it did.

All nine types arise from those three. Learn the grains of sand properly and the Enneagram stops feeling complicated, because you can see why each type does what it does instead of memorising lists.

Why we don’t use the usual type names

You’ll notice we don’t call Type 9 the Peacemaker, or hand out any of the other familiar labels.

In my early years I followed the mainstream approach and used them. What I found was that clients picked the labels up immediately and then reasoned from them. Someone would dismiss a type purely because they didn’t like the sound of the name, or want a type because they did. The label created a strong bias before any real understanding arrived.

Dropping the labels does ask a client to spend a little longer learning. That’s the point. It’s also why we use the cartoons instead, which I drew myself, each one carrying the character of its type rather than a name to argue with.

Get past typing as fast as you can

Perhaps because so many people are mistyped, the real power of the Enneagram goes unused. Typing is the doorway, not the room.

The Enneagram shows precisely when we fall to our lowest expression and how we climb back to our highest. As a coach, that’s the tool. Not the label, the map.

Think of a type as an operating system. If you don’t understand the one you’re running, you struggle and you suffer. Learn how it works and you can get the best from it. You can even upgrade it. That’s the work, and it starts after the typing conversation ends.

Typing without a test

Not many people realise that even the best online Enneagram tests run at 50 to 60% accuracy. That isn’t like a Myers Briggs test. Compare the two experiences.

That last point is the one I care about most. The client leaves holding something, not just being told something.

Why coaches keep coming back to it

It’s a natural way in

People genuinely love the Enneagram, and you’ll have noticed how many companies now hire Enneagram coaches. It’s why we built the foundation studies into our courses. If you want an authentic way to help someone and get them interested in being coached, it’s one of the best icebreakers and entry points into life and business coaching there is.

In practice that looks like this:

• Start a conversation about the three Pearls, and watch people ask to know more.
• Add a typing session to open a client’s personal growth journey.
• Include typing in relationship coaching, team coaching or leadership development, where it adds value immediately.
• Add a four hour Enneagram session to team building. This is one of my most popular offers, and our master coaches report the same.

It changes relationships, at work and at home

When you understand the operating systems, you gain compassion. You see why the people around you speak and act as they do.

It’s humbling to realise how differently other people are motivated. And it’s practical, because if you want to inspire change in someone, you have to speak to their reasons, not yours.

It grows your apple tree

Our symbol for the natural self is the apple tree. The Enneagram is a good tool for growing it, because it maps your blind spots and shows you the way back to your own wholeness. There’s more on that idea in how to life coach.

The three mistakes to avoid

1. Thinking the Enneagram is about behaviour, when it’s about the reasons for behaviour.
2. Believing the tests are accurate, when they run at 50 to 60%.
3. Stopping at the type, and never using the map for growth.

The third is the most common, and the most costly. A type on its own is just a label. The map is what changes someone’s life.

If you want to do this professionally

We train people to offer Enneagram typing sessions and Enneagram coaching, using the 8 Step method, and we’ve guided enthusiasts from over 60 countries to become certified Enneagram coaches.

If you’re new to all this, start with learning the Enneagram or the free Enneagram in 90 Minutes course, and read through the nine types.

When you’re ready to train, the Enneagram Coach Certification is ICF accredited and counts as credits toward the Level 2 (PCC) Master Coach qualification. Classes run live online and they fill quickly, so it’s worth enrolling well ahead of a start date. If you’d rather talk it through with someone first, that’s what the guidance call is for.