Assertive Stance | Types 3, 7 & 8
Let's take a look at the Assertive Stance and how Types 3, 7 & 8 tend to move through the world and make decisions.
Prefer to listen to the workshop audio? For a more in-depth experience with the material, listen to the separate podcast audio post on the Enneagram Workshop publication in Substack.
Assertive Stance
In the Enneagram, we see numerous triadic groups, and today we're going to look at one called Stances. When we think about Stances, what is pulling these nine numbers into one of these groups of three is their orientation to time of either the past, present, or future, as well as the way in which they make decisions. When I work with companies and organizations, we consistently talk about Stances, because we are often unaware of what goes into our own decision-making process. Additionally, out of a natural human tendency toward egocentricity, we assume others are making decisions the same way that we are. So when they come to the wrong decision, we think that they have all the same information that we do, and just made the wrong decision (rather than realizing other’s operating with a completely different set of information & priorities in the decision). It’s helpful to understand how people are going about the decision-making process, and Stances gives us much information around that. I will eventually post about all three of them, but today we are going to look at one Stance - the Assertive Stance.
Enneagram Type 3, Type 7 & Type 8
The Assertive Stance includes Types Three, Type Sevens, and Type Eights. This is the only triadic group that these three numbers will fall into together. It’s often called the Assertive Stance, but sometimes you'll hear language around it being called the Aggressive Stance. These names can fluctuate from author to teacher, so if one of the names makes more sense to you, that's okay for you to use that name instead. Assertive Stance includes Types Three, Type Sevens, and Type Eights. Let’s briefly review these three types:
• Threes, often called the Achiever, are adaptable and oriented toward success, striving for excellence and goal completion in various circumstances.
• Sevens, the Enthusiasts, are versatile and eclectic, thriving on new opportunities, variety, and excitement about possibilities.
• Eights, known as Challengers, are decisive and driven by willpower. They possess a strong sense of self-confidence and intrinsic motivation to move forward.
Future Orientation
When we hear even just very brief descriptions of these three types, we can tell that they're three very different numbers, but what's pulling them together in this Assertive Stance is this orientation towards the future – a forward momentum to what is coming. It’s almost as if they are standing about to take another step forward into the next thing, and that looks different between these three types:
• For Type Three, this future orientation focuses on the next project or goals. At any given moment, Threes usually have a handful of personal and professional goals they are pursuing
• For Type Seven, this future orientation focuses on the next opportunity, big idea, or possibility. When Sevens look ahead – they scan the horizon for what is possible.
• For Type Eights, this future orientation focuses on the next challenge to overcome, the next struggle to make their way through, the next thing on the horizon that they will have to survive or conquer in order to make it.
Quick-paced
Another common characteristic of these three Enneagram numbers in this Assertive Stance is that these three types tend to be quick-paced. They have a comfort level with the hustle, having a lot of things going on at any given moment, having a busy schedule, a long to-do list, or a lot of ideas kind of popping in and out of their purview. It doesn't mean that they want YOU to make them busy - they'll still have a similar reaction when they feel like you are overwhelming them with tasks and lists that have to get done, but when they say “yes” to an idea, project or task, then they're comfortable taking on a lot at any given time. What often happens for these three types, though, in this comfort level with the quick pace can create a pace that's so quick that they can wear themselves out. When I was a child, one of the things we loved to do was when we were at a friend’s house that had above-ground pools - we would walk around the inside pool in a circle. And over time, eventually the water starts to follow you, and eventually it creates this little whirlpool. Because we were little, sometimes we could get the water going so fast that it would sweep our feet out from under us with the momentum we’d created. Similarly, sometimes these Assertive Types can get going so quickly that they can sweep their own feet out from under themselves.
“Assertive Types can get going so quickly that they can sweep their own feet out from under themselves.”
They create a pace that turns into sprinting the marathon and then they feel shocked that they couldn't keep up with this unrealistic pace they’d created. This often shows up in moments of burnout or wanting to quit and be done. My invitation always for Type Three, Seven & Eight is to really pause and consider if your pace is just too fast, and if there are things you can do intentionally to slow yourself down so that you can finish the marathon at a more realistic pace.
Moving Forward in Sheer Willpower
When these three types are excited about things, they can move forward with sheer willpower - if I think it, then I can do it.
• If I am confident enough, then I can inspire this group to move through this really hard time.
• If I am enthusiastic enough, I can get people to buy in, and they'll say yes to this.
• If I'm strong enough, then I can make my way through and empower my team to make my way through.
Highly Decisive
Assertive Types tend to be really decisive and are comfortable making decisions, making decisions quickly, and making decisions in isolation (if they can get away with it). My husband and I both fall in the Assertive Stance, and after years of marriage, we managed to just share one car. One of us lived near work, or we could bike or walk to work so we’d just always pulled that off. After our son was born, there was a morning before work that we realized we had both miscommunicated about needing the car the afternoon, and we were annoyed and frustrated about the situation. As we go into our day around 11 o'clock, I get a text from my husband and says, “if we were going to buy a second car, what would our budget be for that?” I give him kind of a rough guess back over text. By two o'clock that day, my husband brings home a new (to our family) car. To recap we had a moment of realizing there was a need, not actually deciding that we should fix the need, just noting that this was an annoyance, and he completely problem-solved a $10K decision without my input. For some of you reading this, you might be having a gut reaction thinking this is a terrible idea & you should not have adult money to make adult decisions in that way - and there's some truth to that. But for some of you, you might have similar stories of this quick, independent decision-making. There’s not always a right or wrong way to make decisions, but sometimes we make them vastly different.
Confidence in Their Ideas
The last thing that I'll share about these three Enneagram Types is that when they have an idea of a way to troubleshoot, problem solve, or even see the next big opportunity - if it's something that they are excited about, they will become really passionate about their solution or their idea so much so that their energy profile around that excitement so high that other personalities don't quite know how to match it and tend to back down. Even if the other personalities don't quite think that this is the best way to go forward, or right timing, they don’t know how to match the Assertive Stance energy. What will happen consistently, whether it's in a friendship, romantic partnership, or even in a work environment, is that these Assertive numbers will have this strong solution or idea and when no one pushes back or asks questions to clarify, the Assertive number reads it that everyone is good with this idea are ready to move forward. But then later on all the other personality types will come back and say, “I heard what you said, but I have some concerns,” or “I've been thinking about it, and I really don't think it's a good idea” - and the Assertive numbers will wonder why they didn’t say something in the moment as we were making this decision. But the problem is that the other personality types, whether instinctually or with full awareness, didn't feel comfortable pushing back against all of the Assertive Stance energy - they needed time for that to kind of subside before they could really collect their thoughts. One of the things that I always encourage Type Three, Sevens & Eights is to slow down enough to let people have buy-in by asking the questions or pushing back if they have some concerns. That can be as simple as asking, “What does that idea sound like to you? What do you think about that? How does that land?” And pausing in awkward silence for 60 seconds and letting people respond back to you. It'll save you a lot of time to slow down on the front end rather than going back through with all these secondary rabbit trail conversations, trying to bring people back into the conversation when they later express concerns.
Momentum Creates Whiplash for Others
To others, the Assertive Stance can feel like they're you're going really fast, and like they don't have time to catch up - and that can create a lot of stress, whether it's in personal relationships or in work relationships. One of the things that we named long ago with my husband and I being in the Assertive Stance was that we're going to have to be mindful about our pace and our speed with our children otherwise our kiddos’ childhood would feel like whiplash.
“We're going to have to be mindful about our pace and our speed with our children otherwise our kiddos’ childhood would feel like whiplash.”
Moving Toward Balance
As we consider the Assertive Stance, and all of the Stances as we slowly go through them in the coming posts, I want to invite you to keep in mind is that these qualities are just neutral descriptions. And when these Assertive numbers are at their best – when they're self-aware & mindful - these qualities can be a tremendous gift of:
• Self confidence,
• Moving forward with enthusiasm,
• Seeing the bigger picture,
• Seizing the opportunity,
• Casting a vision for self & others, and
• Empowering others who tend to second-guess themselves.
Personality in Excess
There are many gifts that come from this Assertive Stance, even outside the ones that I briefly mentioned, but when our personality is in excess, when there is too much of a good thing, it can be really unhelpful when it comes to our personality. If our personality gets into excess, we're on autopilot & our personality is just showing up to make decisions without much of our own awareness. We can run amok in these moments, causing people to feel steamrolled or like they're getting pulled along from one direction to another by the Assertive number. It's hard to generate buy-in if people don't have the ability to really pause and ask questions or give alternate ideas. Again, it is not that these qualities are inherently bad attributes in the Assertive Stance, but rather the invitation is to move away from excess into balance in order to be mindful of how we're showing up with others.
Concluding Thoughts
I hope that you'll check back in to learn about the other Stances, whether you fall into this Stance or another one. The more that we learn about ourselves through the lens of the Enneagram, the more language we have to name our tendencies. With self-awareness, we can show up in a way that's more life-giving and honoring of who we want to be. And the more language that we have about others’ personalities around us, the more compassion we can begin to build from a place of curiosity and understanding.